General Books

CHAPTER I THE SPY "Well, Ruth, aren't you almost ready?" "Just a moment, Alice. I can't seem to get my collar fastened in the back. I wish I'd used the old-fashioned hooks and eyes instead of those new snaps." "Oh, I think those snaps are just adorable!" "Oh, Alice DeVere! Using such an extreme expression!" "What expression, Ruth?"... more...

CHAPTER I TOMMY TODD'S STORY "Mother, how many more stations before we'll be home?" "Oh, quite a number, dear. Sit back and rest yourself. I thought you liked it on the train." "I do; but it's so long to sit still." The little fellow who had asked the question turned to his golden-haired sister, who sat in the seat with him. "Aren't you tired,... more...

A Boy at Sea. Many many years ago seem like yesterday, and I hope it will always be the same. For, just to be serious for a moment, what is the full stretch of the oldest man’s life to time? Just one star-wink, if the astronomers are right about the passage of light, and that the glitter of stars that we see now are only the rays which started from them away there in space long before we were born.... more...

Begins with Differences of Opinion. If ever there was a man in this world who was passionately fond of painting and cut out for a painter, that man was Frank Allfrey; but fate, in the form of an old uncle, had decided that Frank should not follow the bent of his inclinations. We introduce our hero to the reader at the interesting age of eighteen, but, long before that period of life, he had shown the... 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...

TO THE CHILDREN   The greater part of this book is made up of stories from the poems of Homer and Virgil. Homer is thought to have lived in Greece about three thousand years ago, and yet his poems never seem old-fashioned and people do not tire of reading them. Boys and girls almost always like them, because they are so full of stories. If you want to read about giants or mermaids or shipwrecks or... more...

Introduces Will and his Henchman, Josh. “You don’t know it, Master Will, lad, but Natur’ couldn’t ha’ done no better for you if she’d tried.” “Why, Josh?” “Why, lad? There’s a queshton to ask! Why? Warn’t you born in Co’rn’all, the finest country in all England, and ain’t you going to grow into a Cornishman, as all old books says is giants, when you’ve left off being a... 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...

The Rock. Early on a summer morning, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, two fishermen of Forfarshire wended their way to the shore, launched their boat, and put off to sea. One of the men was tall and ill-favoured, the other, short and well-favoured. Both were square-built, powerful fellows, like most men of the class to which they belonged. It was about that calm hour of the morning which... more...

CHAPTER I GOOD NEWS "What are you doing, Freddie?" asked Bert Bobbsey, leaning over to oil the front wheel of his bicycle, while he glanced at his little brother, who was tying strings about the neck of a large, handsome dog. "Making a harness," answered Freddie, not taking time to look up. "A harness?" repeated Bert, with a little laugh. "How can you make a harness out of... more...