Fiction Books

Mon Portrait Written by the poet at the age of 15. Vous me demandez mon portrait,Mais peint d'apres nature:Mon cher, il sera bientot fait,Quoique en miniature. Je suis un jeune polissonEncore dans les classes;Point sot, je le dis sans facon,Et sans fades grimaces. Oui! il ne fut babillardNi docteur de Sorbonne,Plus ennuyeux et plus braillardQue moi-meme en personne. Ma taille, a celle des plus... more...

Chapter I Maria Edgham, who was a very young girl, sat in the church vestry beside a window during the weekly prayer-meeting. As was the custom, a young man had charge of the meeting, and he stood, with a sort of embarrassed dignity, on the little platform behind the desk. He was reading a selection from the Bible. Maria heard him drone out in a scarcely audible voice: “Whom the Lord loveth, He... more...

PREFACE. In his earlier works, notably in "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" and "The Silent House in Pimlico," Mr. Hume won a reputation second to none for plot of the stirring, ingenious, misleading, and finally surprising kind, and for working out his plot in vigorous and picturesque English. In "The Bishop's Secret," while there is no falling off in plot and style, there is... more...

CHAPTER I One bitter day in January in the year 1880, when New York was a tranquil city, a young man stood at the South Ferry waiting for the up-town horse car. With a few other passengers he had just left the packet which had arrived in New York harbour that afternoon from New Orleans. Antony Fairfax was an utter stranger to the North. In his hand he carried a small hand-bag, and by his side on the... more...

HE was walking endlessly down a long, glass-walled corridor. Bright sunlight slanted in through one wall, on the blue knapsack across his shoulders. Who he was, and what he was doing here, was clouded. The truth lurked in some corner of his consciousness, but it was not reached by surface awareness. The corridor opened at last into a large high-domed room, much like a railway station or an air... more...

CHAPTER I. A MAN OF HIS DAY As the Milvains sat down to breakfast the clock of Wattleborough parish church struck eight; it was two miles away, but the strokes were borne very distinctly on the west wind this autumn morning. Jasper, listening before he cracked an egg, remarked with cheerfulness: 'There's a man being hanged in London at this moment.' 'Surely it isn't necessary... more...

I. IN A GARDEN "I wonder what makes Nick so late?" Carmen Gaylor thought, hovering in the doorway between the dim, cool hall and the huge veranda that was like an out-of-doors drawing-room. Though she spoke English well—almost as well as if she had not been born in Spain and made her greatest successes in the City of Mexico—Carmen thought in Spanish, for her heart was Spanish, and her... more...

Dearest Mercédes: It will be days, also nights (worse luck, for my cabin chirps like a cricket, sings like a canary, and does a separate realistic imitation of each animal in the Zoo!), before we get to New York. But I have crochet cramp and worsted wrist from finishing a million scarfs since we sailed, so I feel it will ease the strain to begin a letter to you. I dare say, anyhow, I shan't close... more...

The Mystery of theCircular Chamber One day in late September I received the following letter from my lawyer:— "My Dear Bell,— "I shall esteem it a favour if you can make it convenient to call upon me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning on a matter of extreme privacy." At the appointed hour I was shown into Mr. Edgcombe's private room. I had known him for years—we were, in fact,... more...

CHAPTER I AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR "Cornelius!" exclaimed Captain Passford, as a young man of nineteen was shown into the library of the magnificent dwelling of the millionnaire at Bonnydale, on the Hudson. "Cornelius Passford, Uncle Horatio," replied the young man, as the captain rushed to him and extended his hand. "I think there can be no mistake about it; and I should have been no... more...