Fiction Books

HOW IT ALL BEGAN "We can hold out six months longer,—at least six months." My mother's tone made the six months stretch encouragingly into six long years. I see her now, vividly as if it were only yesterday. We were at our scant breakfast, I as blue as was ever even twenty-five, she brave and confident. And hers was no mere pretense to reassure me, no cheerless optimism of ignorance, but... more...

SIR PERCY EXPLAINS It was not, Heaven help us all! a very uncommon occurrence these days: a woman almost unsexed by misery, starvation, and the abnormal excitement engendered by daily spectacles of revenge and of cruelty. They were to be met with every day, round every street corner, these harridans, more terrible far than were the men. This one was still comparatively young, thirty at most; would have... more...

SUDDEN DEATH She sought in vain! The young woman, who was finishing her toilette, lost patience. With a look of annoyance she half turned round, crying, "Well, Captain, it is easy to see that you are not accustomed to women's ways!" This pretty girl's lover, a man about forty, with an energetic countenance, and a broad forehead adorned with sparse locks, was smoking a Turkish... more...

CHAPTER I TOM'S CHOICE "I can be of no use here, Carry. What am I good for? Why, I could not earn money enough to pay for my own food, even if we knew anyone who would help me to get a clerkship. I am too young for it yet. I would rather go before the mast than take a place in a shop. I am too young even to enlist. I know just about as much as other boys at school, and I certainly have no... more...

WHY FLY AWAY, MOTHER GOOSE? "MOTHER GOOSE, Mother Goose,Why fly away?""Because Mother Truth isA-coming to-day.She'll tell you funny things,But they'll be true;She'll bring you picturesSo charming and new;She'll sing you Melodies, helping to showHow, to true women and men, you may grow."   {14} TOSS THE BABY. Toss the baby high in air;Catch him though, with special... more...

INTRODUCTION We have had illuminating books upon Japan. Those of Lafcadio Hearn will always be remembered for the poetry he brought in them to bear upon the poetic aspects of the country and the people. Buddhism had a fascination for him, as it had for Mr. Fielding in his remarkable book on the practice of this religion in Burma. There is also the work of Captain Brinkley, to which we are largely... more...

CHAPTER I If you go to Southampton and search the register of the Walloon Church there, you will find that in the summer of '57, "Madame Vefue de Montgomery with all her family and servants wereadmitted to the Communion"—"Tous ceux ce furent Recus la a Cene du'57, comme passans, sans avoir Rendu Raison de la foj, mes sur latesmognage de Mons. Forest, Ministre de Madame, quj... more...

CHAPTER I. The bright rays of an Autumn sun fell upon the richly stained glass, sending a flood of soft, mellow rainbow tinted light through the quaintly curved and deeply mullioned windows which adorned a portion of the eastern wing of that grand old Baronial residence, Vellenaux, on a fine September morning, at the period during which our story opens. This handsome pile, now the property of Sir... more...

I do not feel wholly sure that my Pussy wrote these letters herself. They always came inside the letters written to me by my mamma, or other friends, and I never caught Pussy writing at any time when I was at home; but the printing was pretty bad, and they were signed by Pussy's name; and my mamma always looked very mysterious when I asked about them, as if there were some very great secret about... more...

AN INTERRUPTED DREAM Walter Upton pushed aside books and papers, yawned, stretched, yawned again, then settled back in his chair comfortably, his hands clasped behind his head. "I'm glad that vacation is only one week off," he murmured. "School is all right, and I know I'm going to be mighty sorry when school-days end for good. Just the same, this infernal grind to get a... more...