CHAPTER I 'HASTE TO THE WEDDING' 'Wooed and married and a'.' 'Edith!' said Margaret, gently, 'Edith!' But, as Margaret half suspected, Edith had fallen asleep. She lay curled up on the sofa in the back drawing-room in Harley Street, looking very lovely in her white muslin and blue ribbons. If Titania had ever been dressed in white muslin and blue ribbons, and had fallen asleep on a crimson damask sofa in a back drawing-room, Edith might have... more...

CHAPTER I—THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway.  The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light.  A vast silence reigned over the land.  The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of... more...

CHAPTER I THE AUNTS 'Child, be mother to this child.'—E. B. BROWNING.   t was seven o'clock on an autumn morning nearly a hundred years ago. A misty October morning, when the meadows looked grey with the heavy dew, and the sky was only just beginning to show pale blue through the haze which veiled it. There was a certain little hamlet, just a few cottages clustered together beside a country road, where the world seemed hardly yet... more...

THE STRANGE TRACKS There was great excitement in the neighborhood of Farmer Green's house. Rusty Wren had found some strange tracks. And nobody knew whose they were. Now, when they were puzzled like that the field- and forest-folk usually went straight to Mr. Crow for advice. But this time it happened that the old gentleman had gone on an excursion to the further side of Blue Mountain, where Brownie Beaver lived. And there seemed to be no one... more...

CHAPTER I There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question. I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons:... more...

Sagasta-weekee—A Happy Home in the Great Lone Land—Three Boys There Welcomed—The Sudden Coming of Winter—Various Sports Discussed—Hurrah for the Dogs—Useful Animals—Dog-whips—Kinesasis, the Dog-keeper. While a wintry storm was raging outside, in the month of November, three happy, excited boys were gathered around the breakfast table in a cozy home in a far North Land. To those who have not read... more...

CHAPTER I ON THE WAY "All aboard!" The hoarse voice of Captain MacLaren boomed out like a fog horn, waking a clatter of echoes among the tall cliffs on the opposite shore of the river, and sending the seventy-five girls on the dock all skurrying for the Carribou's gangplank at once. "Hurry up, Hinpoha! We're getting left behind." Agony strained forward on the suitcase she was helping Hinpoha to carry down the hill and endeavored to catch up... more...

"Who's that little gal goin' by?" said old Mrs. Emmons. "That—why, that's young Lucretia, mother," replied her daughter Ann, peering out of the window over her mother's shoulder. There was a fringe of flowering geraniums in the window; the two women had to stretch their heads over them. "Poor little soul!" old Mrs. Emmons remarked further. "I pity that child." "I don't see much to pity her for," Ann returned, in a voice high-pitched and... more...

CHAPTER I A MYSTERIOUS DOG The elm-tree avenue was all overgrown, the great gate was never unlocked, and the old house had been shut up for several years. Yet voices were heard about the place, the lilacs nodded over the high wall as if they said, "We could tell fine secrets if we chose," and the mullein outside the gate made haste to reach the keyhole, that it might peep in and see what was going on. If it had suddenly grown up like a magic... more...

CHAPTER I. The "Two Little Confederates" lived at Oakland. It was not a handsome place, as modern ideas go, but down in Old Virginia, where the standard was different from the later one, it passed in old times as one of the best plantations in all that region. The boys thought it the greatest place in the world, of course excepting Richmond, where they had been one year to the fair, and had seen a man pull fire out of his mouth, and do other... more...