Classics Books

he ruler of a planet with a black dwarf sun had called a meeting of the council. It was some time before they were assembled, and he waited patiently without thought. When the patchwork of mentalities was complete he allowed the conclusions of the prognosticator to occupy his mind. A wall of unanimous incredulity sprang up. The statement was that when the inhabitants of a distant planet achieved space... more...

THE GHOST IN THE MILL "Come, Sam, tell us a story," said I, as Harry and I crept to his knees, in the glow of the bright evening firelight; while Aunt Lois was busily rattling the tea-things, and grandmamma, at the other end of the fireplace, was quietly setting the heel of a blue-mixed yarn stocking. In those days we had no magazines and daily papers, each reeling off a serial story. Once a... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ARTICLED PUPIL. 'Where is Miss Palliser?' inquired Miss Pew, in that awful voice of hers, at which the class-room trembled, as at unexpected thunder. A murmur ran along the desks, from girl to girl, and then some one, near that end of the long room which was sacred to Miss Pew and her lieutenants, said that Miss Palliser was not in the class-room. 'I think she is taking... more...

CHAPTER I BAD TRAINING FOR A KNIGHT Egbert Haldane had an enemy who loved him very dearly, and he sincerely returned her affection, as he was in duty bound, since she was his mother. If, inspired by hate and malice, Mrs. Haldane had brooded over but one question at the cradle of her child, How can I most surely destroy this boy? she could scarcely have set about the task more skilfully and... more...

BOOK I A MISCELLANY I - LA MARE DES FEES The leaves rain down upon the forest pond,An elfin tarn green-shadowed in the fern;Nine yews ensomber the wet bank, beyondThe autumn branches of the beeches burnWith yellow flame and red amid the green,And patches of the darkening sky between. This is an ancient country; in this woodThe Druids raised their sacrificial stones;Here the vast timeless silences still... more...

"WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY" A young woman was crying bitterly in the waiting-room of the railway station at Upper Asquewan Falls, New York. A beautiful young woman? That is exactly what Billy Magee wanted to know as, closing the waiting-room door behind him, he stood staring just inside. Were the features against which that frail bit of cambric was agonizingly pressed of a pleasing contour? The... more...

Chapter I A boy's profession is not infrequently chosen for him by his parents, which perhaps accounts for the curious fact that the shrewd, business-like member of a family often becomes a painter, while the artistic, unpractical one becomes a member of the Stock Exchange, in course of time, naturally. My profession was forced upon me, to begin with, by my sisters-in-law, and in the subsequent... more...

In the surgical ward of the Hope Hospital at Hanaford, a nurse was bending over a young man whose bandaged right hand and arm lay stretched along the bed. His head stirred uneasily, and slipping her arm behind him she effected a professional readjustment of the pillows. "Is that better?" As she leaned over, he lifted his anxious bewildered eyes, deep-sunk under ridges of suffering. "I... more...

FAIRY PRINCE In my father's house were many fancies. Always, for instance, on every Thanksgiving Day it was the custom in our family to bud the Christmas tree. Young Derry Willard came from Cuba. His father and our father had been chums together at college. None of us had ever seen him before. We were very much excited to have a strange young man invited for Thanksgiving dinner. My sister Rosalee... more...

FELICITY "Hallo, Greenstock! Lady Chetwode in?" "Her ladyship is not at home, sir. But she is sure to see you, Master Savile," said the butler, with a sudden and depressing change of manner, from correct impassibility to the conventional familiarity of a patronising old retainer. "Dressing, eh? You look all right Greenstock." "Well, I am well, and I am not well, Master... more...