Fiction Books

One afternoon, in the autumn of 1872, I was riding leisurely down the sandy road that winds along the top of the water-shed between two of the smaller rivers of eastern Virginia. The road I was travelling, following “the ridge” for miles, had just struck me as most significant of the character of the race whose only avenue of communication with the outside world it had formerly been. Their once... more...

MY FRIENDS ARE PROVEN At the door of my lodgings I was confronted by Banks, red with indignation and fidgety from uneasiness. "O Lord, Mr. Carvel, what has happened, sir?" he cried. "Your honour's agent 'as been here since noon. Must I take orders from the likes o' him, sir?" Mr. Dix was indeed in possession of my rooms, lounging in the chair Dolly had chosen, smoking my... more...

THE FAIRIES DANCINGI heardalong the early hills,Ere yet the lark was risen up,Ere yet the dawn with firelight fillsThe night-dew of the bramble-cup,—I heard the fairies in a ringSing as they tripped a lilting roundSoft as the moon on wavering wing.The starlight shook as if with sound,As if with echoing, and the starsPrankt their bright eyes with trembling gleamsWhile red with war the gusty MarsRained... more...

CHAPTER I. HERE AND THERE. She was swinging her gingham sunbonnet, faded beyond any recognition of its pristine coloring, her small hand keeping tight hold of the strings. At every revolution it went swifter and swifter until it seemed a grayish sort of wheel whirling in the late sunshine that sent long shadows among the trees. When she let it go it flew like a great bird, while she laughed sweet,... more...

CHAPTER I. "THE DRUSES ARE UP!" "Great Scott, look at her! She's goin' to try and take 'em!" exclaimed Osterhaut, the Jack-of-all-trades at Lebanon. "She ain't such a fool as all that. Why, no one ever done it alone. Low water, too, when every rock's got its chance at the canoe. But, my gracious, she is goin' to ride 'em!" Jowett, the... more...

I CARROLLTON GARDENS For the scene of this narrative please take into mind a wide quarter-circle of country, such as any of the pretty women we are to know in it might have covered on the map with her half-opened fan. Let its northernmost corner be Vicksburg, the famous, on the Mississippi. Let the easternmost be Mobile, and let the most southerly and by far the most important, that pivotal corner of... more...

CHAPTER I TWO YOUNG GIRLS "And you are quite sure, daddy, I am not dreaming? That I am sitting right here with my arms around your neck, and you have just told me it is all perfectly true?" And, to make still more certain that the whole matter was one of unquestionable reality, the girl gave her parent such a flesh and blood hug that a physical answer came to her question in the shape of a... more...

CHAPTER I. THE INKED SURPLICE. The sweet bells of Helstonleigh Cathedral were ringing out in the summer's afternoon. Groups of people lined the streets, in greater number than the ordinary business of the day would have brought forth; some pacing with idle steps, some halting to talk with one another, some looking in silence towards a certain point, as far as the eye could reach; all waiting in... more...

THE LITTLE GIRL "How would you like to go to New York to live, little girl?" The little girl looked up into her father's face to see if he was "making fun." He did sometimes. He was beginning to go down the hill of middle life, a rather stout personage with a fair, florid complexion, brown hair, rough and curly, and a border of beard shaved well away from his mouth. Both beard and... more...

Chapter One Graduation Night Jane Cameron looked breathlessly around the room where seventeen senior nurses of the Good Samaritan hospital at University City sat primly awaiting their diplomas. It was graduation night and Jane was among the seventeen who had completed all of the requirements for a certificate in nurses’ training. Delayed half an hour by an emergency case on third floor surgery, Jane... more...