Fiction Books

CHAPTER I EXCUSES POOR Madeline came into the room a little flustered and hustled, with papers in her muff. She found Bertha looking lovely and serene as usual. Madeline Irwin was a modern-looking girl of twenty-three; tall, thin, smart and just the right shape; not pretty, but very sympathetic, with thick dark hair and strongly marked eyebrows, a rather long and narrow face, delicately modelled, a... more...

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE Once upon a time the forest was in a great commotion. Early in the evening the wise old cedars had shaken their heads ominously and predicted strange things. They had lived in the forest many, many years; but never had they seen such marvellous sights as were to be seen now in the sky, and upon the hills, and in the distant village. "Pray tell us what you see," pleaded... more...

CHAPTER I. The winter of 1633 had set in with unusual severity throughout Suabia and Bavaria, though as yet scarcely advanced beyond the first week of November. It was, in fact, at the point when our tale commences, the eighth of that month, or, in our modern computation, the eighteenth; long after which date it had been customary of late years, under any ordinary state of the weather, to extend the... more...

CHAPTER I Near the end of my fourteenth year I was apprenticed to Valentine, King & Co., cotton importers, Liverpool, as a "pair of legs." My father had died suddenly, leaving me and his property in the possession of my stepmother and my guardian. It was in deference to their urgent advice that I left my home in London (with little reluctance, since my life there had never been happy) to... more...

The night the visitors came Richard Pell worked late among the great banks of criminological computers. He whistled to himself, knowing that he was way off key but not caring. Ciel, his wife, was still in his mind's eye; he'd seen her on the viewer and talked with her not ten minutes ago.C.I.B. Agent Pell used his head, even if he did rely on hunches more than on the computer. In fact, when... more...

How the World Watches theNew Year Come In The proverbial “good resolutions” of the first of January which are usually forgotten the next day, the watch services in the churches, and the tin horns in the city streets, are about the only formalities connected with the American New Year. The Pilgrim fathers took no note of the day, save in this prosaic record: “We went to work betimes”; but one... more...

BLONDINE There was once a king called Benin. He was good and all the world loved him; he was just and the wicked feared him. His wife, the Queen Doucette, was also good, and much beloved. This happy pair had a daughter called the Princess Blondine, because of her superb fair hair, and she was as amiable and charming as her father the king and her mother the queen. Unfortunately, the poor queen died a... more...

CHAPTER I YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT A TANGO LESSON The idea originated with Bunch Jefferson. You can always count on Bunch having a few freak ideas in the belfry where he keeps his butterflies. Bunch and his wife, Alice, live out in Westchester County, about half a mile from Uncle Peter's bungalow, where friend wife and I are spending the winter. The fact that Uncle Peter and Aunt Martha had decided... more...

PREFACE The Editor takes this opportunity to repeat what he has often said before, that he is not the author of the stories in the Fairy Books; that he did not invent them 'out of his own head.' He is accustomed to being asked, by ladies, 'Have you written anything else except the Fairy Books?' He is then obliged to explain that he has NOT written the Fairy Books, but, save these,... more...

I. EARLY MISTAKES It was a Sunday morning in the beginning of April 1813, a morning which gave promise of one of those bright days when Parisians, for the first time in the year, behold dry pavements underfoot and a cloudless sky overhead. It was not yet noon when a luxurious cabriolet, drawn by two spirited horses, turned out of the Rue de Castiglione into the Rue de Rivoli, and drew up behind a row... more...