Fiction Books

CHAPTER I THE MISTRESS OF MONDREER “Mother! Oh, mother! it will break my heart!” wailed Odalite, sinking at the lady’s feet, and dropping her head into her hands, face downward to the carpet. The lady gently raised her child, took her in her arms and tenderly caressed her, murmuring, softly: “No, my own! hearts never break, or one heart, I know, must have broken long ago. Besides,” she added,... more...

CHAPTER I If you will look back over the files of the "Southern Christian Advocate," published at the time in Macon, Georgia, you will find the following notice—by a singular coincidence on the page devoted to "obituaries": "Married—Mary Elizabeth Eden to William Asbury Thompson. The bride is the daughter of Colonel and Mrs. Eden, of Edenton; the groom is the son of the late... more...

CHAPTER I.AN OLD BEE HUNTER. The bee hunters in my early days used one of two methods in hunting the bee. The hunter would select a clear day, generally during buckwheat bloom, and after determining on a course, sun them to the tree. This was done by placing the hat or hand between the eye and sun as close to the light as the eye would permit. If the hunter knew the difference between the flight of a... more...

Above us curved the pale, hot bowl of cloudless sky; below us stretched the rolling, tawny wastes of the great Arabian Desert; and away to the east, close to the dipping horizon, scudded the tiny speck we were following. We had been following it since dawn and it was now close to sunset. Where was it leading us? Should we go on or turn back? How much longer would our gas and oil hold out? And just... more...

CHAPTER I One morning, in the fall of 1880, a middle-aged woman, accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, presented herself at the clerk's desk of the principal hotel in Columbus, Ohio, and made inquiry as to whether there was anything about the place that she could do. She was of a helpless, fleshy build, with a frank, open countenance and an innocent, diffident manner. Her eyes were large and... more...

I. LADY BOUNTIFUL Society in the west of Ireland is beautifully tolerant. A man may do many things there, things frowned on elsewhere, without losing caste. He may, for instance, drink heavily, appearing in public when plainly intoxicated, and no one thinks much the worse of him. He may be in debt up to the verge of bankruptcy and yet retain his position in society. But he may not marry his cook. When... more...

I.ABOARD THE CARMANIA MARGOT NOT A NATURAL TOURIST; LACKS CURIOSITY—HEADLINES IN LONDON COMPARED WITH HEADLINES IN NEW YORK—AMERICAN WOMEN WORLDLY—AMERICAN MEN THE GENUINE ARTICLE I MOTORED to Southampton on Saturday, the 21st of January, this year, and after saying good-bye to my husband and my son, retired to my berth on the Carmania. I am a bad traveller, and had been laid up with a sort of... more...

"The C.O. wants to see you." "What for?" I asked. "I don't know, but he is in the orderly room." It was the adjutant who was speaking, and his manner led me to think there was something in the wind which he did not like to tell me. I left the mess, and a few moments later I was standing before the C.O. "I have just received a telegram from the War Office; you are... more...

CHAPTER I The Fifth Day of April, 1676 Upon the village of Camylott there had rested since the earliest peep of dawn a hush of affectionate and anxious expectancy, the very plough-boys going about their labours without boisterous laughter, the children playing quietly, and the good wives in their kitchens and dairies bustling less than usual and modulating the sharpness of their voices, the most... more...

THE CHURCH THE DEVIL STOLE Most travellers to the West know queer little Brent Tor, that isolated church-crowned peak that stands up defiantly a mile or two from Lydford, seeming, as it were, a sentry watching the West for grim Dartmoor that rises twice its height behind it. Burnt Tor, they say, was the old name of this peak, because, seen from a distance, the brave little mountain resembles a flame... more...