Fiction Books

CHAPTER ONE Miss Philura Rice tied her faded bonnet-strings under her faded chin with hands that trembled a little; then she leaned forward and gazed anxiously at the reflection which confronted her. A somewhat pinched and wistful face it was, with large, light-lashed blue eyes, arched over with a mere pretense at eyebrows. More than once in her twenties Miss Philura had ventured to eke out this scanty... more...

CHAPTER I. HIS GREAT MISTAKE It appeared that Armour had made the great mistake of his life. When people came to know, they said that to have done it when sober had shown him possessed of a kind of maliciousness and cynicism almost pardonable, but to do it when tipsy proved him merely weak and foolish. But the fact is, he was less tipsy at the time than was imagined; and he could have answered to more... more...

I HOW I FOUND MY TITLE It is surely a rare experience for an unclassified man, past middle age, to hear himself accurately and aptly described for the first time in his life by a perfect stranger! This thing happened to me at Bristol, some time ago, in the way I am about to relate. I slept at a Commercial Hotel, and early next morning was joined in the big empty coffee-room, smelling of stale tobacco,... more...

ld Miss Barbara Noble twitched aside the edge of the white scrim curtain to get a better look at the young man coming down the street. He might be the one. The young man bent a little under the weight of the battered black suitcase as he crossed Maple and started up Prospect on Miss Noble's side. She could see him set the case down on the wide porch of the Raney house and wipe his forehead with a... more...

PREFACE. APPEARING before the Public as a translator of the Oracles of God, it would ill become me to deprecate the severity of criticism, when I most cordially desire the intelligent and learned of my brethren to point out my mistakes for correction, and, in love and in the spirit of meekness, to smite me friendly. Should, however, the shafts of malignity, and the weapons not of our warfare, be... more...

THE TRAVELLERS. In the month of June, (the jubilee month of poets and travellers) in the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, Mr. Sackville, his wife, and their two children, Edward and Julia, made the grand tour of Niagara, the lakes, Montreal, Quebec, &c. Both parents and children kept journals, in which they recorded with fidelity whatever they observed which they deemed worthy of note. We have... more...

CHAPTER I. Policy of the Court of Morocco.—Its strength.—Diplomatic Intercourse with England.—Distrust of Europeans.—Commercial Relations. Morocco is the China of North Africa. The grand political maxim of the Shereefian Court is, the exclusion of strangers; to look upon all strangers with distrust and suspicion; and should they, at any time, attempt... more...

CHAPTER I. Caravan of Khalkha-Tartars—Son of the King of Koukou-Noor—Sandara the Bearded—Two thousand Oxen are stolen from the Houng-Mao-Eul, or Long Hairs—Fearful Tumult at Tang-Keou-Eul—Description and character of the Long Hairs—Feasts of the First Day of the Year—Departure for the Lamasery of Kounboum—Arrival at Night—Old Akayé—The Kitat-Lama—The Stammerer—Pilgrims at... more...

CHAPTER I. French Mission of Peking—Glance at the Kingdom of Ouniot—Preparations for Departure—Tartar-Chinese Inn—Change of Costume—Portrait and Character of Samdadchiemba—Sain-Oula (the Good Mountain)—The Frosts on Sain-Oula, and its Robbers—First Encampment in the Desert—Great Imperial Forest—Buddhist monuments on the summit of the mountains—Topography of the Kingdom of... more...

CHAPTER I. The Mogador Jewesses.—Disputes between the Jew and the Moor.—MelancholyScenes.—The Jews of the Atlas.—Their Religion.—Beautiful Women.—TheFour Wives.—Statues discovered.—Discrepancy of age of married people.—Young and frail fair ones.—Superstition respecting... more...