Fiction Books

CHAPTER I "Are you coming in to watch the dancing, Lady Conway?" "I most decidedly am not. I thoroughly disapprove of the expedition of which this dance is the inauguration. I consider that even by contemplating such a tour alone into the desert with no chaperon or attendant of her own sex, with only native camel drivers and servants, Diana Mayo is behaving with a recklessness and... more...

THE WILD NORTH SEA There was a large fleet of sailing brigs, barques and schooners waiting for a favourable wind and spring tides, so that they might be put to sea without running the risk of thumping their keels off on the Bar. The vessels had been loaded for several weeks. Many of them were bound to the Baltic. These were spoken of as the "Spring Fleet." The older and smaller craft were... more...

INTRODUCTION. AS we very justly esteem it a fit Tribute of Admiration to adorn natural Curiosities, by setting them as richly and as advantageously as art can direct, so the following Observations of the Shepherd of Banbury have appeared to me worthy of being presented to the Eye of the Public, with all the Lustre that it was in my Power to give them. It is one thing to observe, and another to reason... more...

Mr. Johnson, a very worthy charitable gentleman, was traveling some time ago across one of those vast plains which are well known in Wiltshire. It was a fine summer's evening, and he rode slowly that he might have leisure to admire God in the works of his creation. For this gentleman was of opinion, that a walk or a ride was as proper a time as any to think about good things: for which reason, on... more...

CHAPTER I. THE STRANGER. IT was corn-planting time, when the stranger followed the Old Trail into the Mutton Hollow neighborhood. All day a fine rain had fallen steadily, and the mists hung heavy over the valley. The lower hills were wrapped as in a winding sheet; dank and cold. The trees were dripping with moisture. The stranger looked tired and wet. By his dress, the man was from the world beyond the... more...

THE WHITE HORSE CHAPLAIN The Bishop of Alden was practising his French upon Arsene LaComb. It was undoubtedly good French, this of M’sieur the Bishop, Arsene assured himself. It must be. But it certainly was not any kind of French that had ever been spoken by the folks back in Three Rivers. Still, what did it matter? If Arsene could not understand all that the Bishop said, it was equally certain that... more...

The world could afford to spare many a magnificent library better than it could dispense with this little Psalm of six verses. If the verses of this Psalm had tongues and could repeat the tale of their ministry down throughout the generations of the faithful, what marvels of experience they would reveal! Their biographies would be gathered from the four winds of heaven and from the uttermost parts of... more...

THE SHOT It was a still, balmy night in late October. The scent of burned autumn leaves hung in the air, and a hazy moon, showing just over the housetops, deepened the shadows on the streets. Policeman Murphy stopped far a moment, as was his custom, at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Sheridan Road. He knew that it was about two o'clock in the morning as that was the hour at which he usually... more...

One afternoon in July, 1869, I was seated at my desk in Locock's law-office in the town of Kiota, Kansas. I had landed in New York from Liverpool nearly a year before, and had drifted westwards seeking in vain for some steady employment. Lawyer Locock, however, had promised to let me study law with him, and to give me a few dollars a month besides, for my services as a clerk. I was fairly... more...

LAFE JOHNSON ARRIVES AT THE LAZY L RANCH It may come as a shock to many to learn that we have in cowland a considerable number of full-blooded men who have never made it a practice to step outside the door of a morning and shoot a fellow-citizen before breakfast. This is true; vital statistics and fiction to the contrary, notwithstanding. They are well-grown, two-fisted men, also, and work very hard... more...