Fiction Books

SENIORS! Polly Pendleton and Lois Farwell returned to Seddon Hall as seniors. Up the long hill that led from the station their carriage crawled as it had done on every other opening day. From the summit of the hill the low, red-roofed buildings of the school smiled a welcome from their setting of blazing Autumn leaves, and all around them girls were calling out greetings. There was a marked change in... more...

PREFACE. In the winter of 1873 I spent some weeks in one of the tombs of the Necropolis of Thebes in order to study the monuments of that solemn city of the dead; and during my long rides in the silent desert the germ was developed whence this book has since grown. The leisure of mind and body required to write it was given me through a long but not disabling illness. In the first instance I intended... more...

When the doctor had gone, and the two women from the village he had been waiting for were upstairs shut in with her dead father, Lucy went out into the garden and stood leaning on the gate staring at the sea. Her father had died at nine o'clock that morning, and it was now twelve. The sun beat on her bare head; and the burnt-up grass along the top of the cliff, and the dusty road that passed the... more...

THE PURPLE CLOUD Well, the memory seems to be getting rather impaired now, rather weak. What, for instance, was the name of that parson who preached, just before the Boreal set out, about the wickedness of any further attempt to reach the North Pole? I have forgotten! Yet four years ago it was familiar to me as my own name. Things which took place before the voyage seem to be getting a little cloudy in... more...

A PROPOSAL. She was eighteen years old and would graduate in a few weeks, yet Elsie looked like a child, lying there in that little white bed, with her golden curls scattered on the pillow and the soft whiteness of her neck and hands shaded by the delicate Valenciennes with which her night robe was profusely decorated. A quantity of hot house flowers lay scattered on the counterpane, where the girl had... more...

Victor Roy Victor's Soliloquy. Heavily rolleth the wintry clouds,  And the ceaseless snow is falling, falling,As the frost king's troops in their icy shrouds,  Whistle and howl, like lost spirits calling. But a warm luxuriantly furnished room,  Is an antidote to the wild night storm,Lamplight and firelight banish the gloom,  No poverty stalks there with cold gaunt form. Yet there... more...

CHAPTER I ANDY BURKE "John, saddle my horse, and bring him around to the door." The speaker was a boy of fifteen, handsomely dressed, and, to judge from his air and tone, a person of considerable consequence, in his own opinion, at least. The person addressed was employed in the stable of his father, Colonel Anthony Preston, and so inferior in social condition that Master Godfrey always... more...

The deep and widespread interest which the writings of Mr. Rudyard Kipling have excited has naturally led to curiosity concerning their author and to a desire to know the conditions of his life. Much has been written about him which has had little or no foundation in truth. It seems, then, worth while, in order to prevent false or mistaken reports from being accepted as trustworthy, and in order to... more...

PREFACE It seems justly due to Mr. Hawthorne that the occasion of any portion of his private journals being brought before the Public should be made known, since they were originally designed for his own reference only. There had been a constant and an urgent demand for a life or memoir of Mr. Hawthorne; yet, from the extreme delicacy and difficulty of the subject, the Editor felt obliged to refuse... more...

MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE. "No," said the curiosity dealer, "that mummy is not for sale. I had too big a job to get it." "Tell me about it," I asked. The curiosity dealer carefully closed and locked the case, and then meditatively rolled a cigarette. "Well, it was this way: you see I was out after snakes and other natural history specimens. I had a special order from a chap in... more...