Fiction Books

INTRODUCTION. Among the serious pests in orchards and tree plantations are the several native species of rabbits. These animals do considerable damage to garden truck and other farm crops also, especially on lands recently opened to cultivation. North American rabbits belong to two general classes easily distinguished by their size and habits. The larger forms include the arctic and varying hares, or... more...

CHAPTER I WESTVILLE PREPARES TO CELEBRATE The room was thick with dust and draped with ancient cobwebs. In one corner dismally reposed a literary junk heap—old magazines, broken-backed works of reference, novels once unanimously read but now unanimously forgotten. The desk was a helter-skelter of papers. One of the two chairs had its burst cane seat mended by an atlas of the world; and wherever any... more...

CHAPTER I It is only with the politest affectation of interest, as a rule, that English Society learns the arrival in its midst of an ordinary Continental nobleman; but the announcement that the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg had been appointed attache to the German embassy at the Court of St. James was unquestionably received with a certain flutter of excitement. That his estates were as vast as an... more...

CHAPTER I.  CRIMSON FAVOURS. M. de Tavannes smiled.  Mademoiselle averted her eyes, and shivered; as if the air, even of that close summer night, entering by the door at her elbow, chilled her.  And then came a welcome interruption. “Tavannes!” “Sire!” Count Hannibal rose slowly.  The King had called, and he had no choice but to obey and go.  Yet he hung a last moment over his companion,... more...

AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT. "FOR which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost?" An interesting question is here asked by the direction of infinite wisdom. This question contains the following useful and important instruction: That no man or body of men should attempt the accomplishment of any great object without duly estimating the evils and... more...

Between two and three years ago, the following pithy advertisement appeared in several of the London papers:— "Country Lodgings.—Apartments to let in a large farm-house,situate in a cheap and pleasant village, about forty milesfrom London. Apply (if by letter post-paid) to A. B., No. 7,Salisbury-street, Strand." Little did I think, whilst admiring in the broad page of the Morning Chronicle... more...

THE PLAY HOUSE Amelia Maxwell sat by the front-chamber window of the great house overlooking the road, and her own "story-an'-a-half" farther toward the west. Every day she was alone under her own roof, save at the times when old lady Knowles of the great house summoned her for work at fine sewing or braiding rags. All Amelia's kin were dead. Now she was used to their solemn absence,... more...

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED TORONTO To the Red Gowns of St. Andrews Canada, 1922 You have had many rectors here in St. Andrews who will continue in bloom long after the lowly ones such as I am are dead and rotten and forgotten. They are the roses in December; you remember someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December. But I do not envy the great ones. In my... more...

THE FIRST HYMN. God made the bright, round sun; He made the pretty flowers; The little birds, the trees, the clouds The rain that falls in showers. He made papa, mamma, And baby brother, too; And mother says He looks from Heaven, And sees each thing I do. Then I must try to be Pleasant, and sweet, and mild; For the good God who made me loves A kind, obedient child. Now again the yellow sun Shines upon... more...

Uncle Indefer  "I have a conscience, my dear, on this matter," said an old gentleman to a young lady, as the two were sitting in the breakfast parlour of a country house which looked down from the cliffs over the sea on the coast of Carmarthenshire. "And so have I, Uncle Indefer; and as my conscience is backed by my inclination, whereas yours is not—" "You think that I shall give... more...