Fiction Books

It was their first summer at Middlemount and the Landers did not know the roads. When they came to a place where they had a choice of two, she said that now he must get out of the carry-all and ask at the house standing a little back in the edge of the pine woods, which road they ought to take for South Middlemount. She alleged many cases in which they had met trouble through his perverse reluctance to... more...

CHAPTER I OFF TO GLENMORE The Stone House looked as fine, and its gardens as gay with flowers, as when the members of the household were to be at home for a season, for it always seemed at those times as if the blossoming plants did their best, because sure of loving admiration. But something entirely new was about to happen; something that made Dorothy Dainty catch her breath, while her dearest... more...

CHAPTER I Guardianship.The age of legal capability for the Roman woman was after the twelfth year, at which period she was permitted to make a will. However, she was by no means allowed to do so entirely on her own account, but only under supervision. This superintendence was vested in the father or, if he was dead, in a guardian; if the woman was married, the power belonged to the husband. The consent... more...

CHAPTER I. It was a large house, standing well back from the broad highway that leads from Brenton to Pelham, so far back, indeed, and at the end of such a long shady drive, that it could not be seen for some few minutes after turning in from the road. The approach was pretty, the avenue winding through the trees, with an occasional glimpse of the meadows beyond. The road forked where the trees ended,... more...

If the management of the Hotel Guelph, that London landmark, could have been present at three o'clock one afternoon in early January in the sitting-room of the suite which they had assigned to Mrs Elmer Ford, late of New York, they might well have felt a little aggrieved. Philosophers among them would possibly have meditated on the limitations of human effort; for they had done their best for Mrs... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE CITY OF THE WINDS The Ebro, as all the world knows--or will pretend to know, being an ignorant and vain world--runs through the city of Saragossa. It is a river, moreover, which should be accorded the sympathy of this generation, for it is at once rapid and shallow. On one side it is bordered by the wall of the city. The left bank is low and sandy, liable to flood; a haunt of lizards... more...

I STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY From Ste. Marie's little flat, which overlooked the gardens, they drove down the quiet rue du Luxembourg, and at the Place St. Sulpice turned to the left. They crossed the Place St. Germain des Prés, where lines of home-bound working-people stood waiting for places in the electric trams, and groups of students from the Beaux Arts or from... more...

CHARITY THE PECULIAR VIRTUE OF CHRIST OUR Divine Saviour shows both by precept and example that His favourite virtue, His own and, in a certain sense, characteristic virtue, was charity. Whether He treated with His ignorant and rude Apostles, with the sick and poor, or with His enemies and sinners, He is always benign, condescending, merciful, affable, patient; in a word, His charity appeared in all... more...

The space-ship Viking—two hundred feet of gleaming metal and polished duralite—lay on the launching platform of New York City's municipal airport. Her many portholes gleamed with light. She was still taking on rocket fuel from a tender, but otherwise all the final stores were aboard. Her helicopters were turning over slowly, one at a time, as they were tested. In the Viking's upper... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE DANGER ZONE She stood on the crown of the hill, silhouetted against a sky-line of deepest blue. Already the sun was sinking in a crotch of the plains which rolled to the horizon edge like waves of a great land sea. Its reflected fires were in her dark, stormy eyes. Its long, slanted rays were a spotlight for the tall, slim figure, straight as that of a boy. The girl's gaze was... more...