Classics Books

A High Family. “Con-found those organs!” said the Earl of Barmouth. “And frustrate their grinders,” cried Viscount Diphoos. “They are such a nuisance, my boy.” “True, oh sire,” replied the viscount, who had the heels of his patent leather shoes on the library chimney-piece of the town mansion in Portland Place. He had reached that spot with difficulty, and was smoking a cigar, to calm... more...

CHAPTER I. Along the banks of the Red River, over those fruitful plains brightened with wild flowers in summer, and swept with fierce storms in the winter-time, is written the life story of Louis Riel. Chance was not blind when she gave as a field to this man's ambition the plains whereon vengeful Chippewas and ferocious Sioux had waged their battles for so many centuries; a country dyed so often... more...

"LADY DAISY."A DOLL STORY. Little Flora's father gave her a small china doll on her fourth birthday. It was only a little one, but Flora's father said that his little girl was very small too, and he thought she could not carry a big doll yet. When Flora was five years old her father gave her a larger one, and when she was six her father presented her with a beautiful baby doll in long... more...

Lady Clare It was the time when lilies blow,And clouds are highest up in air.Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doeTo give his cousin, Lady Clare. I trow they did not part in scorn:Lovers long betrothed were they;They two will wed the morrow morn;God's blessing on the day! "He does not love me for my birthNor for my lands so broad and fair;He loves me for my own true worth,And that is well,"... more...

A Matrimonial Hurdle. Cassandra Raynor stood on the terrace of her great house, looking over the sweep of country stretching to right and left, and in her heart was the deadliest of all weariness,—the weariness of repletion. It seemed at that moment the bitterest cross that she had nothing left for which to wish, that everything good which the world could give was hers already, and had left her cold.... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL.  Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite,—a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland,—on the 1st of June,... more...

I. PRIMEVAL IRELAND. "It seems to be certain," says the Abbé McGeoghehan, "that Ireland continued uninhabited from the Creation to the Deluge." With this assurance to help us on our onward way I may venture to supplement it by saying that little is known about the first, or even about the second, third, and fourth succession of settlers in Ireland. At what precise period what is known... more...

THE PEACE-PIPELONG ago, when our cities were pleasant woodlands and the white man was far beyond the seas, the great Manito, God of all the Indians, descended to the earth. From the red crags of the Great Red Pipestone Quarry he gazed upon the country that he ruled, and a silver river gushed from his footprints and turned to gold as it met the morning sun. The Great Manito stooped to gather some of the... more...

THE LADIES’ KNITTING AND NETTING BOOK. SECOND SERIES. Gentlemen’s Knitted Gloves. Four needles No. 15, and fine German lambs’-wool. Cast on 88 stitches, 28 on each of 2 needles, and 32 on the 3rd, knit round, knitting and ribbing 4 stitches alternately; when you have done about one inch, continue with plain knitting until your glove is long enough to begin increasing for the thumb, which is done... more...

CHAPTER I Mrs. Ussher was having a small house party in the country over New Year's Day. This is equivalent to saying that the half dozen most fashionable people in New York were out of town. Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in... more...