Fiction Books

"Kindness," argued little Mrs. Pennycoop, "costs nothing." "And, speaking generally, my dear, is valued precisely at cost price," retorted Mr. Pennycoop, who, as an auctioneer of twenty years' experience, had enjoyed much opportunity of testing the attitude of the public towards sentiment. "I don't care what you say, George," persisted his wife; "he may be... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE AND WHAT IT SIGNIFIES IN FAMILY LIFE; TYPIFIED IN PIONEER AND COLONIAL HOMES, THE CENTERS OF INDUSTRY AND HOSPITALITY. "There is no noble life without a noble aim."—CHARLES DOLE. The word Home to the Anglo-Saxon race calls to mind some definite house as the family abiding-place. Around it cluster the memories of childhood, the aspirations of youth, the sorrows of middle... more...

CHAPTER I John Trott waked that morning at five o'clock. Whether it was due to the mere habit of a working-man or the blowing of the hoarse and mellow whistle at the great cotton-mills beyond the low, undulating hills half a mile away he did not know, but for several years the whistle had been his summons from a state of dead slumber to a day of toil. The morning was cloudy and dark, so he lighted... more...

COUNCIL OF DOGS.Why aCouncilofDogswas convened on the Plain,ThePresident Sheep Dogthus rose to explain.—"This meeting I call, to complain of misusageFrom the poets, who now a days have a strange usageOf leading up Insects and Birds to Parnassus,While, without rhyme or reason, unnotic'd they pass us.—Declare then those talents by which we may claimSome pretensions, I hope, to poetical... more...

Chapter 1. Marseilles—The Arrival. On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples. As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Chateau d'If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island. Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean were covered with... more...

A MOVE ON THE “FORTY” In Paris, in Rome, in Florence, in Berlin, in Vienna—in fact, over half the face of Europe, from the Pyrenees to the Russian frontier—I am now known as “The Count’s Chauffeur.” An Englishman, as my name George Ewart denotes, I am of cosmopolitan birth and education, my early youth having been spent on the Continent, where my father was agent for a London firm. When I... more...

It was a Thursday evening, the fifteenth of October; and although only half-past six o'clock, it had been dark for some time already. The weather was cold, and the sky was as black as ink, while the wind blew tempestuously, and the rain fell in torrents. The servants at the Hotel de Chalusse, one of the most magnificent mansions in the Rue de Courcelles in Paris, were assembled in the... more...

CHAPTER I Not far from the rugged and storm-whipped north shore of Lake Superior, and south of the Kaministiqua, yet not as far south as the Rainy River waterway, there lay a paradise lost in the heart of a wilderness world—and in that paradise "a little corner of hell." That was what the girl had called it once upon a time, when sobbing out the shame and the agony of it to herself. That was... more...

A PARTY AT WORSTED SKEYNES The year was 1891, the month October, the day Monday. In the dark outside the railway-station at Worsted Skeynes Mr. Horace Pendyce's omnibus, his brougham, his luggage-cart, monopolised space. The face of Mr. Horace Pendyce's coachman monopolised the light of the solitary station lantern. Rosy-gilled, with fat close-clipped grey whiskers and inscrutably pursed... more...

I. THE JILTING OF JANE. As I sit writing in my study, I can hear our Jane bumping her way downstairs with a brush and dust-pan. She used in the old days to sing hymn tunes, or the British national song for the time being, to these instruments, but latterly she has been silent and even careful over her work. Time was when I prayed with fervour for such silence, and my wife with sighs for such care, but... more...