Family Life Books

BOOK ONE THE BEATING HEART Jan of Ruffluck Croft never tired of telling about the day when his little girl came into the world. In the early morning he had been to fetch the midwife, and other helpers; all the forenoon and a good part of the afternoon he had sat on the chopping-block, in the woodshed, with nothing to do but to wait. Outside it rained in torrents and he came in for his share of the... more...

CHAPTER I—THE STRANGE LAD ‘Goodness!  If ever I did see such a pig!’ said Ellen King, as she mounted the stairs.  ‘I wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs!’ ‘Who?’ said a voice from the bedroom. ‘Why, that tramper who has just been in to buy a loaf!  He is a perfect pig, I declare!  I only wonder you did not find of him up here!  The police ought to hinder such folk from coming... more...

Chapter I: Buried Treasure I Probably our father would never have chosen Mrs. Handsomebody to be our governess and guardian during the almost two years he spent in South America, had it not seemed the natural thing to hand us over to the admirable woman who had been his own teacher in early boyhood. Had he not been bewildered by the sudden death of our young mother, he might have recalled scenes... more...

CHAPTER I.AN UNWELCOME LEGACY."Children! They are a nuisance to everyone—my abomination, as you know, Jack. Why on earth they can not be kept out of sight altogether till they reach a sensible age is what puzzles me! And I suppose if anything could make the matter worse, it is that this is a girl." The tone of disgust with which the last word was uttered brought a laugh from Sir Edward... more...

PROLOGUE I never met Gabrielle Hewish. I suppose I should really call her by that name, for her marriage took the colour out of it as surely as if she had entered a nunnery, and adopted the frigid and sisterly label of some female saint. Nobody had ever heard of her husband before she married him, and nobody ever heard of Gabrielle afterwards, except those who were acquainted with the story of Arthur... more...

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE INTRODUCTORY TO "THE SCARLET LETTER" It is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends—an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favoured the reader—inexcusably, and for... more...

CHAPTER I WHICH SHALL IT BE? “And now that I have them, how am I to decide? That is the question?” The speaker was a fine-looking man about thirty-five years of age, seated before a large writing-table in a handsomely appointed library. It was littered with catalogues, pamphlets, letters and papers sent from dozens of schools, and from the quantity of them one would fancy that every school in the... more...

THE OPINIONS OF A PHILOSOPHER My wife Josephine declares that I have become a philosopher in my old age, and perhaps she is right. Now that I am forty, and a trifle less elastic in my movements, with patches of gray about my ears which give me a more venerable appearance, I certainly have a tendency to look at the world as through a glass. Yet not altogether darkly be it said. That is, I trust I am no... more...

It was market-day in Queningford. Aggie Purcell was wondering whether Mr. Hurst would look in that afternoon at the Laurels as he had looked in on other market-days. Supposing he did, and supposing Mr. Gatty were to look in, too, why then, Aggie said, it would be rather awkward. But whether awkward for herself, or for Mr. Gatty, or Mr. Hurst, or for all three of them together, Aggie was unable to... more...

CHAPTER I Crash! Bang! Bang! "The March of the Pilgrims" came to an abrupt end. John Lansing Birch laid down his viola and bow, whirled about, and flung out his arms in despair. "Oh, this crowd is hopeless!" he groaned. "Never mind any other instrument, providing yours is heard. This march is supposed to die away in the distance! You murder it in front of the house. That second... more...