General Books

PROLOGUE A STORY BEFORE THE STORY On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was about her. There was so very, very much beauty—the sky, azure blue overhead and paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like waves of a sea, the... more...

CHAPTER I MRS. MERILLIA IS CARRIED TO BED The great telescope of the Prophet was carefully adjusted upon its lofty, brass-bound stand in the bow window of Number One Thousand Berkeley Square. It pointed towards the remarkably bright stars which twinkled in the December sky over frosty London, those guardian stars which always seemed to the Prophet to watch with peculiar solicitude over the most... more...

What happened on the Pericles. “You, Thompson, go down and send the second mate up to me. Tell him to leave whatever he is doing and to come up here at once. I want to speak to him,” growled Captain Fisher of the steamer Pericles, turning, with a menacing expression, to the grizzled old quartermaster who stood beside him on the bridge. Thompson, as though only too glad of an excuse to leave the... more...

In writing this book my desire has been to draw an exact copy of the picture which is indelibly stamped on my own memory. I have carefully avoided exaggeration in everything of importance. All the chief and most of the minor incidents are facts. In regard to unimportant matters, I have taken the liberty of a novelist—not to colour too highly, or to invent improbabilities, but—to transpose time,... more...

On a foggy morning of early July in the year 1890, the Labrador mail boat, northward bound from St. Johns, felt her way cautiously into the mist-enveloped harbour of Fort Pelican and to her anchorage. For six days the little steamer had been buffeted by wind and ice and fog, and when at last her engines ceased to throb and she lay at rest in harbour, Allen Shadrach Trowbridge of Boston, her only... more...

CHAPTER I Rick Brant stretched luxuriously and slid down to a half-reclining, half-sitting position in his dad's favorite library armchair. He called, "Barby! Hurry up!" Don Scott looked up from his adjustment of the television picture. "What's the rush? The show hasn't started yet." Rick explained, "She likes the commercials." A moment later Barbara Brant... more...

CHAPTER I. THE OUTLAWS."Come listen to me, ye gallants so free,All ye who love mirth for to hear;And I will tell you of a bold outlawWho lived in Nottinghamshire." Old Ballad. Ikey Ford was the first to make the discovery, and he lost no time in carrying the news to the others. Great was their consternation! "Moving into the Brown house? Nonsense, Ikey, you are making it up!" Carl... more...

Chapter 1 PETER BREAKS THROUGH All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain... more...

CHAPTER I. A MEMORABLE NEW YEAR'S DAY. Dorothy to Eleanor, Dearest Eleanor, You have so often reminded me how rapidly the most startling facts pass from the memory of man, and I have so often thereupon promised to write down a full account of that mysterious affair in which I was providentially called upon to play so prominent a part, that it is with shame I reflect that the warning has been... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE BURNING BREAKER "Fire! Fire in the breaker! Oh, the boys! the poor boys!" These cries, and many like them—wild, heartrending, and full of fear—were heard on all sides. They served to empty the houses, and the one street of the little mining village of Raven Brook was quickly filled with excited people. It was late in the afternoon of a hot summer's day, and the... more...