Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. "My dear," said William Brenton to his wife, "do you think I shall be missed if I go upstairs for a while? I am not feeling at all well." [Illustration: "Do you think I shall be missed?"] "Oh, I'm so sorry, Will," replied Alice, looking concerned; "I will tell them you are indisposed." "No, don't do that," was the answer; "they... more...

I was born at York on the first of March in the sixth year of the reign of King Charles the First. From the time when I was quite a young child, I had felt a great wish to spend my life at sea, and as I grew, so did this taste grow more and more strong; till at last I broke loose from my school and home, and found my way on foot to Hull, where I soon got a place on board a ship. When we had set sail... more...

Thanks to the precautions taken by Procopius, the trick had succeeded completely. At the moment in which the flag of the Goths fell and their King was taken prisoner, they were everywhere surprised and overpowered. In the courts of the palace, in the streets and canals of the city and in the camp, they were surrounded by far superior numbers. A palisade of lances met their sight on all sides. Almost... more...

CHAPTER I I Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on the 27th May 1867, in Brougham Street, Bursley, the most ancient of the Five Towns. Brougham Street runs down from St Luke's Square straight into the Shropshire Union Canal, land consists partly of buildings known as "potbanks" (until they come to be sold by auction, when auctioneers describe them as "extensive earthenware... more...

"Omnes Omnia Bona Dicere"  When young Mark Robarts was leaving college, his father might well declare that all men began to say all good things to him, and to extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with so excellent a disposition. This father was a physician living at Exeter. He was a gentleman possessed of no private means, but enjoying a lucrative practice, which had enabled him to... more...

I THE MARRYING OF SUSAN CLEGG Susan Clegg and Mrs. Lathrop were next-door neighbors and bosom friends. Their personalities were extremely congenial, and the theoretical relation which the younger woman bore to the elder was a further bond between them. Owing to the death of her mother some twenty years before, Susan had fallen into the position of a helpless and timid young girl whose only key to the... more...

CHAPTER I: THE WAR OF THE SUCCESSION "He is an idle vagabond!" the mayor of the good town of Southampton said, in high wrath—"a ne'er do well, and an insolent puppy; and as to you, Mistress Alice, if I catch you exchanging words with him again, ay, or nodding to him, or looking as if in any way you were conscious of his presence, I will put you on bread and water, and will send you... more...

THE VALLEY OF DELIGHT In all probability your first view of the valley of the Yumuri will be from the Hermitage of Montserrate, for it is there that the cocheros drive you. Up the winding road they take you, with the bay at your back and the gorge at your right, to the crest of a narrow ridge where the chapel stands. Once there, you overlook the fairest sight in all Christendom—"the loveliest... more...

CHAPTER I GANGOIL. Just a fortnight before Christmas, 1871, a young man, twenty-four years of age, returned home to his dinner about eight o'clock in the evening. He was married, and with him and his wife lived his wife's sister. At that somewhat late hour he walked in among the two young women, and another much older woman who was preparing the table for dinner. The wife and the wife's... more...

CHAPTER I WHEREIN FORTUNE TURNS HER WHEEL At ten o'clock on a morning in October—a dazzling, sunlit morning after hours of wind-lashed rain—a young man hurried out of Victoria Station and dodged the traffic and the mud-pools on his way towards Victoria Street. Suddenly he was brought to a stand by an unusual spectacle. A procession of the "unemployed" was sauntering out of Vauxhall... more...