Fiction Books

ACT I The scene is the blue and white room in the house of the Misses Susan and Phoebe Throssel in Quality Street; and in this little country town there is a satisfaction about living in Quality Street which even religion cannot give. Through the bowed window at the back we have a glimpse of the street. It is pleasantly broad and grass-grown, and is linked to the outer world by one demure shop, whose... more...

"DE HINE FOOT ER A HE FRAWG" Toward the close of an early summer afternoon, a little girl came running along the turnpike to where a boy stood wriggling his feet in the dust. "Old Aunt Ailsey's done come back," she panted, "an' she's conjured the tails off Sambo's sheep. I saw 'em hanging on her door!" The boy received the news with an indifference from... more...

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INTRODUCTION It can hardly be said that there were two series of Pierre stories. There never was but one series, in fact. Pierre moved through all the thirty-nine stories of Pierre and His People and A Romany of the Snows without any thought on my part of putting him out of existence in one series and bringing him to life again in another. The publication of the stories was continuous, and at the time... more...

CHAPTER I “I sometimes think that one’s past life is written in a foreign language,” said Mrs. Bowring, shutting the book she held, but keeping the place with one smooth, thin forefinger, while her still, blue eyes turned from her daughter’s face towards the hazy hills that hemmed the sea thirty miles to the southward. “When one wants to read it, one finds ever so many words which one cannot... more...

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THE KEY The young doctor stamped vehemently up the marble steps, to warm his feet, and once in the warm, flower-scented halls, let a little shiver escape him. The butler was new—he was always new, the doctor thought—and actually didn't know him. "Mrs. Allen is at bridge, sir, with a party: she asks to be excused," he began mechanically. ("That's good!" Stanchon felt... more...

CHAPTER I TELLS HOW THE PENNINGTONS LOST PENNINGTON I am writing this story at the wish of many friends, who tell me it is my duty so to do. Certain stories have been afloat, which are anything but true, and it has been urged upon me again and again to set down in plain terms the true history of events which have set people's tongues wagging. I must confess that, in spite of the pleasure I have in... more...

JOAN READS BY FIRELIGHT There is no silence so fearful, so breathless, so searching as the night silence of a wild country buried five feet deep in snow. For thirty miles or so, north, south, east, and west of the small, half-smothered speck of gold in Pierre Landis’s cabin window, there lay, on a certain December night, this silence, bathed in moonlight. The cold was intense: below the bench where... more...

PART I "Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other things to engage me." So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing some of his recent material. But the landlady had the pertinacity and... more...