Fiction Books

Begumbagh. I’ve waited all these years, expecting some one or another would give a full and true account of it all; but little thinking it would ever come to be my task. For it’s not in my way; but seeing how much has been said about other parts and other people’s sufferings; while ours never so much as came in for a line of newspaper, I can’t think it’s fair; and as fairness is what I always... more...

CHAPTER I—HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN, AND HOW NORMAN LESLIE FLED OUT OF FIFE It is not of my own will, nor for my own glory, that I, Norman Leslie, sometime of Pitcullo, and in religion called Brother Norman, of the Order of Benedictines, of Dunfermline, indite this book.  But on my coming out of France, in the year of our Lord One thousand four hundred and fifty-nine, it was laid on me by my... more...

MY DEAR READER, Rightly understood, the two points of view, as regards Religion, of the brothers, Cardinal Newman and Francis Newman, which most separated them, would, together, have approached the realization of a great conception. For the Cardinal, Authority was the sine quâ non without which there could be no real faith. Authority was the pilot, without whose steering he could not feel secure in... more...

CHAPTER I When Sarah Hayden Mosely died, she did something. Most people do not. They cease to do. They are forgotten. The grass that springs above their dust is the one recurrent memory which the earth publishes of them long after the world has been eased of their presence, the fever of their prayers and hopes. It was the other way with this dim little old woman. During the whole of her life she had... more...

CHAPTER ONE JOY IN AMBER SATIN Joy Havenith had no business at all to be curled up on the back stairs under Great-Grand-Aunt Lucilla's picture. She ought to have been sliding sweetly up and down the long double parlors with teacups and cake, and she knew it. But she just didn't care. As a matter of fact, Aunt Lucilla and the other ancestors ought to have been in the parlors, too; but... more...

When it was the Five Hundred and Seventy-second Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Jinni who was prisoned in the pillar had told them his tale, from first to last, the folk marvelled at his story and at the frightfulness of his favour, and the Emir Musa said, "There is no God but the God! Soothly was Solomon gifted with a mighty dominion." Then said the Shaykh... more...

TING-A-LING. In a far country of the East, in a palace surrounded by orange groves, where the nightingales sang, and by silvery lakes, where the soft fountains plashed, there lived a fine old king. For many years he had governed with great comfort to himself, and to the tolerable satisfaction of his subjects. His queen being dead, his whole affection was given to his only child, the Princess Aufalia;... more...

CHAPTER I Penny Nichols flung open the office door of the Nichols Detective Agency, descending upon a dignified, gray-haired man who was busy at his desk. "Dad," she announced, "I've come to report a mysterious disappearance!" Christopher Nichols dropped the correspondence upon which he was working and regarded his daughter for a moment, his gray eyes flashing an indulgent welcome.... more...

CHAPTER I. CASTLE WARLOCK. A rough, wild glen it was, to which, far back in times unknown to its annals, the family had given its name, taking in return no small portion of its history, and a good deal of the character of its individuals. It lay in the debatable land between highlands and lowlands; most of its inhabitants spoke both Scotch and Gaelic; and there was often to be found in them a notable... more...

A LETTER A solitary hut, dismal, rectangular, stands on the north bank of the White River. Decay has long been at work upon it, yet it is still weather-proof. It was built long before planks were used in the Bad Lands of Dakota. It was built by hands that aimed only at strength and durability, caring nothing for appearances. Thus it has survived where a lighter construction must long since have been... more...