Fiction Books

It began in a Woman's Club in London on a February afternoon—an uncomfortable club, and a miserable afternoon—when Mrs. Wilkins, who had come down from Hampstead to shop and had lunched at her club, took up The Times from the table in the smoking-room, and running her listless eye down the Agony Column saw this: To Those Who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine. Small mediaeval Italian Castle on... more...

CHAPTER I IN WHICH BABNABAS KNOCKS DOWN HIS FATHER, THOUGH AS DUTIFULLY AS MAY BE John Barty, ex-champion of England and landlord of the "Coursing Hound," sat screwed round in his chair with his eyes yet turned to the door that had closed after the departing lawyer fully five minutes ago, and his eyes were wide and blank, and his mouth (grim and close-lipped as a rule) gaped, becoming aware of... more...

A NOBLEMAN'S NEST I The brilliant, spring day was inclining toward the evening, tiny rose-tinted cloudlets hung high in the heavens, and seemed not to be floating past, but retreating into the very depths of the azure. In front of the open window of a handsome house, in one of the outlying streets of O * * * the capital of a Government, sat two women; one fifty years of age, the other seventy... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT OF THE PARISH. The ecclesiastical administration of the English parish from the period of the Reformation down to the outbreak of the great Civil War is a subject which has been much neglected by historians of local institutions. Yet during the reign of Elizabeth, at least, the church courts took as large a share in parish government as did the justices of the... more...

ONCE upon a time there was a little girl called Lucie, who lived at a farm called Little-town. She was a good little girl—only she was always losing her pocket- handkerchiefs! One day little Lucie came into the farm-yard crying— oh, she did cry so! "I've lost my pocket-handkin! Three handkins and a pinny! Have you seen them, Tabby Kitten?" THE Kitten went on washing her white paws; so... more...

ENGLISH POEMS TO THE READER Art was a palace once, things great and fair,And strong and holy, found a temple there:Now 'tis a lazar-house of leprous men.O shall me hear an English song again!Still English larks mount in the merry morn,An English May still brings an English thorn,Still English daisies up and down the grass,Still English love for English lad and lass—Yet youngsters blush to sing... more...

It seems inexcusable to remind the public that one has written a book. Poppa says I ought not to feel that way about it—that he might just as well be shy about referring to the baking soda that he himself invented—but I do, and it is with every apology that I mention it. I once had such a good time in England that I printed my experiences, and at the very end of the volume it seemed necessary to... more...

I THE DUB "Smell," P. Sybarite mused aloud.... For an instant he was silent in depression. Then with extraordinary vehemence he continued crescendo: "Stupid-stagnant-sepulchral- sempiternally-sticky-Smell!" He paused for both breath and words—pondered with bended head, knitting his brows forbiddingly. "Supremely squalid, sinisterly sebaceous, sombrely sociable Smell!" he... more...

CHAPTER ONE. IN NAPOLEON'S GROTTO. On a certain August day, in the year 1776, two little girls were strolling hand in hand along the pleasant promenade that leads from the queer little town of Ajaccio out into the open country. The town of Ajaccio is on the western side of the beautiful island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea. Back of it rise the great mountains, white with snowy tops; below... more...

PART I Night, with the sinister, brooding peace of the desert, enwrapped the land, and the inmates of the old Karoo farm had long been at rest; but it was an hour when strange tree-creatures cry with the voices of human beings, and stealthy velvet-footed things prowl through places forbidden by day, and not all who rested at Blue Aloes were sleeping. Christine Chaine, wakeful and nervous, listening to... more...