CHAPTER I "Tea is ready, Bernard," said Laura Clowes, coming in from the garden. It was five o'clock on a June afternoon, but the hall was so dark that she had to grope her way. Wanhope was a large, old-fashioned manor-house, a plain brick front unbroken except in the middle, where its corniced roof was carried down by steps to an immense gateway of weathered stone, carved with the escutcheon of the family and their Motto: FORTIS ET FIDELIS.... more...

Chapter One. Which the reader will find very easy to read. Mr Nicodemus Easy was a gentleman who lived down in Hampshire; he was a married man, and in very easy circumstances. Most couples find it very easy to have a family, but not always quite so easy to maintain them. Mr Easy was not at all uneasy on the latter score, as he had no children; but he was anxious to have them, as most people covet what they cannot obtain. After ten years, Mr... more...

CHAPTER THE FIRST MR. DIRECK VISITS MR. BRITLING § 1 It was the sixth day of Mr. Direck's first visit to England, and he was at his acutest perception of differences. He found England in every way gratifying and satisfactory, and more of a contrast with things American than he had ever dared to hope. He had promised himself this visit for many years, but being of a sunny rather than energetic temperament—though he firmly... more...

PART I "... The profound influence of civilian morale upon the course of modern war is nowhere more clearly shown than in the case of that monstrous war-engine popularly known as a 'Wabbly.' It landed in New Jersey Aug. 16, 1942, and threw the whole Eastern Coast into a frenzy. In six hours the population of three States was in a panic. Industry was paralyzed. The military effect was comparable only to a huge modern army landed in our... more...

CHAPTER I 'Shall I set the tea, Miss?' Miss Cookson turned from the window. 'Yes—bring it up—except the tea of course—they ought to be here at any time.' 'And Mrs. Weston wants to know what time supper's to be?' The fair-haired girl speaking was clearly north-country. She pronounced the 'u' in 'supper,' as though it were the German 'u' in Suppe. Miss Cookson shrugged her shoulders. 'Well, they'll settle that.' The tone... more...

OFF TO WAR The time was late in the autumn of the second year of the war; the place, the garden of a war hospital in a small Austrian town, which lay at the base of wooded hills, sequestered as behind a Spanish wall, and still preserving its sleepy contented outlook upon existence. Day and night the locomotives whistled by. Some of them hauled to the front trains of soldiers singing and hallooing, high-piled bales of hay, bellowing cattle and... more...

MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER. PART I. It may suffice the reader, without being very inquisitive after my name, that I was born in the county of Salop, in the year 1608, under the government of what star I was never astrologer enough to examine; but the consequences of my life may allow me to suppose some extraordinary influence affected my birth. My father was a gentleman of a very plentiful fortune, having an estate of above £5000 per annum,... more...

CHAPTER I RUSSELL AUBREY The town-clock was on the last stroke of twelve, the solitary candle measured but two inches from its socket, and as the summer wind rushed through the half-closed shutters, the melted tallow dripped slowly into the brightly-burnished brazen candlestick. The flickering light fell upon the pages of a ledger, and flashed fitfully in the face of the accountant, as he bent over his work. Sixteen years growth had given him... more...

CHAPTER I A MAKER OF MAPS There was a rustle in the bushes, the sound of twigs snapping, a soft foot-fall on the dead leaves. Marche stopped, took his pipe out of his mouth, and listened. Patter! patter! patter! over the crackling underbrush, now near, now far away in the depths of the forest; then sudden silence, the silence that startles. He turned his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly, striving to pierce the thicket with his... more...

The sun was sinking low beyond the ford of the foaming Platte. The distant bluffs commanding the broad valley of the Sweetwater stood sharp and clear against the westward skies. The smoke from the camp-fires along the stream rose in misty columns straight aloft, for not so much as a breath of breeze had wafted down from the far snow fields of Cloud Peak, or the sun-sheltered rifts of the Big Horn. The flag at the old fort, on the neighboring... more...