Girls & Women Books

CHAPTER I. "You are the comfort of my life, Effie. If you make up your mind to go away, what is to become of me?" The speaker was a middle-aged woman. She was lying on a sofa in a shabby little parlor. The sofa was covered with horse-hair, the room had a faded paper, and faded chintz covered the shabby furniture. The woman's pleading words were emphasized by her tired eyes and worn face.... more...

PRUDY'S PATCHWORK I am going to tell you something about a little girl who was always saying and doing funny things, and very often getting into trouble. Her name was Prudy Parlin, and she and her sister Susy, three years older, lived in Portland, in the State of Maine, though every summer they went to Willowbrook, to visit their grandmother. At the very first of our story, Susy was more than six... more...

CHAPTER I THE MOATED GRANGE “Here they are!” “Not really!” “It is, I tell you!” “Jubilate! You’re right, old sport! Scooterons-nous this very sec! Quick! Hurry! Stir your old bones, can’t you?” The two girls, who had been standing in the ruined watch-tower that spanned the gateway, tore down the broken corkscrew staircase at a speed calculated to imperil their necks seriously, and... more...

CHAPTER I A Pixie Girl "If I'd known!" groaned Winifred Cranston, otherwise Wendy, with a note of utter tragedy in her usually cheerful voice. "If I'd only known! D'you think I'd have come trotting back here with my baggage? Not a bit of it! Nothing in this wide world should have dragged me. I'd have turned up my hair—yes, it's quite long enough to turn up,... more...

MARY'S RAINBOW CHAPTER I. "You have grown very fond of your good nurse, haven't you, Mary?" "Indeed I have, Uncle. I wish she could go South with us after Christmas." "But don't you think it would be selfish of us to take her away from little folks who really need her? That brings us to a matter of importance which I must discuss with you this evening." Mary, in... more...

LEGAL ADVICE. The old lawyer caressed his smoothly shaven chin and gazed out at Joyce Lavillotte from under his shaggy eyebrows, as from the port-holes of a castle, impressing her as being quite as inscrutable of aspect and almost as belligerent. She, flushed and bright-eyed, leaned forward with an appealing air, opposing the resistless vigor of youth to the impassiveness of age. "It is not the... more...

CHAPTER I AN AFTERNOON TEA “I wish I had a twin sister,” said Patty; “no, that wouldn’t do, either. I wish I were twins, and could be both of them myself.” “What a sensible wish!” commented Nan. “But why do you want to double yourself up in that way?” “So I could go to two places at once. Here I have two lovely invitations for this afternoon, and I don’t know which I want to... more...

CHAPTER I "Down, Prince!" High above the shrill exclamations of surprise and terror came that thin silvery command which the dog, great black fellow that he was, obeyed at once, and his flight in pursuit of those daring petticoats which had intruded on his master's orchard was brought to an ignominious end. "Girls, say, girls, don't be frightened! He won't bite!" One of... more...

A NEW DEPARTURE. "But, mother, it isn't as if I were going away from home, like the Lloyd girls; you might have a right to cry if that were the case." "I know, dear; it's all right, and I ought to be very thankful; but I'm a foolish woman. I can't bear to think of my little girl, whom I have guarded so tenderly, going among all those girls and men, and fighting her way... more...

CHAPTER I THE CRASH ON THE HILL "Smooth as glass!" ejaculated Nan Sherwood, as she came in sight of Pendragon Hill and noted the gleaming stretch of snow and ice that ran down to the very edge of Lake Huron. "And you're the girl that said coasting time would never, never come," laughed her chum, Bess Harley, who was walking beside her with her hand on a rope attached to a bobsled... more...