General Books

During fourteen years Hepworth Closs had been a wanderer over the earth. When he was carried out from the court-room after Mrs. Yates' confession of a crime which he had shrinkingly believed committed by another, he had fainted from the suddenness with which a terrible load had been lifted from his soul. In that old woman's guilt he had no share. It swept the blackness from the marriage he... more...

PREFACE Though to explain incurs a risk, the author accepts the hazard of a word in advance. While the novelist's license has been so used that there is need neither to resent an innuendo nor to prove an "alibi," yet, substantially, the incidents narrated occurred within the time stated, and nearly all the actors are still upon life's "boards." The conscientious tourist in... more...

CHAPTER I SPRING BANK A large, old-fashioned, weird-looking wooden building, with strangely shaped bay windows and stranger gables projecting here and there from the slanting roof, where the green moss clung in patches to the moldy shingles, or formed a groundwork for the nests the swallows built year after year beneath the decaying eaves. Long, winding piazzas, turning sharp, sudden angles, and low,... more...

Chapter 1.I There were times when we had to go without puddings to pay John's uniform bills, and always I did the facings myself with a cloth-ball to save getting new ones. I would have polished his sword, too, if I had been allowed; I adored his sword. And once, I remember, we painted and varnished our own dog-cart, and very smart it looked, to save fifty rupees. We had nothing but our pay—John... more...

A RELIC FROM AFRICA The Maid of the North was ready for sea. Only the touch of the engineer was wanting to send her, once again, on a homeward voyage to the St. Lawrence. Meanwhile, in solemn undertones, she was breathing forth her superabundant steam. Behind the wharf lay the city of Boston. A score of passengers, together with friends who had come aboard to see them off, were scattered about the... more...

In the Morning of Life the Truthful wooed the Beautiful, and their offspring was Love. Like his Divine parents, He is eternal. He has his Mother's ravishing smile; his Father's steadfast eyes. He rises every day, fresh and glorious as the untired Sun-God. He is Eros, the ever young. Dark, dark were this world of ours had either Divinity left it—dark without the day-beams of the Latonian... more...

CHAPTER I—IN THE OLD CITY OF ROCHESTER Strictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers; but, being a Traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as I hope to be, I brought the number up to seven.  This word of explanation is due at once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door? RICHARD WATTS, Esq.by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579,founded this Charityfor Six... more...

CHAPTER I ANARCHY "What you gonna have?" To this inquiry the patron made no response; head bent, nose between the pages of the magazine, she pored sedulously over a legend attached to one of the illustrations. After a decent pause in waiting the waitress renewed her demand with a sharper accent: "Say, lis'en; what you want?" "White satin, veiled with point d'... more...

When Anna Estcourt was twenty-five, and had begun to wonder whether the pleasure extractable from life at all counterbalanced the bother of it, a wonderful thing happened. She was an exceedingly pretty girl, who ought to have been enjoying herself. She had a soft, irregular face, charming eyes, dimples, a pleasant laugh, and limbs that were long and slender. Certainly she ought to have been enjoying... more...

I. MY GRANDMOTHER AND I. My grandmother sat in her own particular easy-chair by the open window of her back parlor. This was a pleasant place in which to sit in the afternoon, for the sun was then on the other side of the house, and she could look not only over the smooth grass of the side yard and the flower beds, which were under her especial care, but across the corner of the front lawn into the... more...