Fiction Books

PREFACE.SUNDAY ought to be the most cheerful, sunniest, happiest and best day of the week in every home. In most homes it is the dullest and most dreary day of the week to the children, and the most taxing and the most wearying to the parents, especially to the mother. It not only ought to be, but it can be made, not only the brightest and happiest but also the most influential in the... more...

INTRODUCTION. The Last Abbot of Whalley. There were eight watchers by the beacon on Pendle Hill in Lancashire. Two were stationed on either side of the north-eastern extremity of the mountain. One looked over the castled heights of Clithero; the woody eminences of Bowland; the bleak ridges of Thornley; the broad moors of Bleasdale; the Trough of Bolland, and Wolf Crag; and even brought within his ken... more...

ADVERTISEMENT. The American publishers of M. De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," have been frequently solicited to furnish the work in a form adapted to seminaries of learning, and at a price which would secure its more general circulation, and enable trustees of School District Libraries, and other libraries, to place it among their collections. Desirous to attain these objects, they... more...

I. RED LAKE Shefford halted his tired horse and gazed with slowly realizing eyes. A league-long slope of sage rolled and billowed down to Red Lake, a dry red basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the desert, a lonely and desolate door to the vast, wild, and broken upland beyond. All day Shefford had plodded onward with the clear horizon-line a thing unattainable; and for days before that he had... more...

INTRODUCTION. No period in the history of our country surpasses in interest that immediately preceding and including the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Many volumes have been written setting forth the patriotism and heroism of the fathers of the Republic, but the devotion of the mothers and daughters has received far less attention. This volume is designed, therefore, to portray in some degree... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY. "What about?" There are some houses whereof the outward aspect is sealed with the seal of respectability—houses which inspire confidence in the minds of the most sceptical of butchers and bakers—houses at whose area-gates the tradesman delivers his goods undoubtingly, and from whose spotless door-steps the vagabond children of the neighbourhood recoil as... more...

THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG On Kvalholm, down in Helgeland, dwelt a poor fisherman, Elias by name, with his wife Karen, who had been in service at the parson's over at Alstad. They had built them a hut here, and he used to go out fishing by the day about the Lofotens. There could be very little doubt that the lonely Kvalholm was haunted. Whenever her husband was away, Karen heard all manner of... more...

TO YOU Blue Wednesday The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day—a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste. Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety-seven reminded of their... more...

When he heard the deer crashing through brush and scuffling the dead leaves, he stopped and stood motionless in the path. He watched them bolt down the slope from the right and cross in front of him, wishing he had the rifle, and when the last white tail vanished in the gray-brown woods he drove the spike of the ice-staff into the stiffening ground and took both hands to shift the weight of the pack.... more...

irst, I must tell you how I intend to relate my story. Having never before undertaken to write a long narrative, I have considered and laid down a few rules which I shall observe. Some of these are unquestionably good; others, I daresay, offend against the canons of composition; but I adopt them, because they will enable me to tell my story better than, with my imperfect experience, better rules... more...