Lifestyles Books

CHAPTER I. MOTHER AND SONS. AMMA, there's such a fine poem here about "seven lovely Campbells" whose father's name was Archibald; it must mean us,—don't you think so?' And a very pretty boy about ten years of age, who had been poring for some time over Wordsworth's Poems, lifted his roguish face to his mother's with a look of pretended conviction.'Not... more...

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CHAPTER I. IN WHICH ERNEST THORNTON BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH MISS KATE LORAINE.WE are getting a capital breeze over here," said my friend Bob Hale, who was seated at my side in the Splash."There is always plenty of wind over here when it comes from the north-west," I replied. It was one of the last days of May, and the weather, which had been chilly and disagreeable during the preceding... more...

AT NEW CONSTANTINOPLE IT had been snowing hard for twenty-four hours at Dead Man’s Gulch. Beginning with a few feathery particles, they had steadily increased in number until the biting air was filled with billions of snowflakes, which whirled and eddied in the gale that howled through the gorges and cañons of the Sierras. It was still snowing with no sign of cessation, and the blizzard blanketed... more...

The Old Tower—Captain Askew’s Family—The Smugglers—Why Jack Askew went to Sea. There was an old grey weather-beaten stone tower standing on the top of a high rocky promontory, which formed the western side of a deep bay, on the south coast of England. The promontory was known as the Stormy Mount, which had gradually been abbreviated into Stormount, a very appropriate name, for projecting, as it... more...

On the Pier. It was a gloomy evening. A small group of fishermen were standing—at the end of a rough wooden pier projecting out into the water and forming the southern side of the mouth of a small river. A thick mist, which drove in across the German Ocean, obscured the sky, and prevented any object being seen beyond a few hundred fathoms from the shore, on which the dark leaden-coloured waves broke... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCING TOM, THE BOOTBLACK. "How do you feel this morning, Jacob?" asked a boy of fifteen, bending over an old man crouched in the corner of an upper room, in a poor tenement-house, distant less than a quarter of a mile from the New York City Hall. "Weak, Tom," whined the old man, in reply. "I—I ain't got much strength." "Would you like some... more...

A Bunch of Lilac. “What’s in a name?”—Shakespeare. Mrs James White stood at her cottage door casting anxious glances up at the sky, and down the hill towards the village. If it were fine the rector’s wife had promised to come and see the baby, “and certainly,” thought Mrs White, shading her eyes with her hand, “you might call it fine—for April.” There were sharp showers now and... more...

Happy Jack. Have any of you made a passage on board a steamer between London and Leith? If you have, you will have seen no small number of brigs and brigantines, with sails of all tints, from doubtful white to decided black—some deeply=laden, making their way to the southward, others with their sides high out of the water, heeling over to the slightest breeze, steering north. On board one of... more...

On Board the “Kestrel.” Morning on board the Kestrel, his Britannic majesty’s cutter, lying on and off the south coast on the lookout for larks, or what were to her the dainty little birds that the little falcon, her namesake, would pick up. For the Kestrel’s wings were widespread to the soft south-easterly breeze that barely rippled the water; and mainsail, gaff topsail, staysail, and jib were... more...