I PERSONAL   Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue rim of the ocean  Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shadows and sunshine.          (Longfellow—"Miles Standish") Val and I, being twins, have always been looked upon as inseparables. True, we have been often forced apart during life's course; yet, somehow, we have always managed to drift back again into the... more...

Every person who enters rightly into covenant with God is on the pathway to gladness and honour. He comes into sympathy with Him who from eternity made a covenant with His chosen. He gives joy to Him who loves to see His people even touch the hem of His garments, or eagerly grasp His Omnipotent hand. The Spirit of God on the heart of the believer draws him into the firmest attachment to the Beloved.... more...

PROGRESS. ["Giving evidence recently before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, Miss C. E. Collet, of the Home Office, said the commercial laundry was killing the small hand laundry."—Evening News.] The little crafts! How soon they die! In cottage doors no shuttle clicks; The hand-loom has been ousted by A large concern with lots more sticks. The throb of pistons beats around; Great... more...

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD There were once a King and Queen, who were very unhappy at not having any children, more unhappy than words can tell. Vows, pilgrimages, everything was tried, but nothing was of any avail; at length, however, a little daughter was born to them. There was a splendid christening. For godmothers, they gave the young Princess all the fairies they could find in the... more...

CHAPTER I The scene was Dean Street, Soho, and this story opens on a snowy winter night in the January of 1888. The modern improvements of Shaftesbury Avenue were as yet unmade, and the foreign district of London had still to be opened up. A cold north wind was blowing on the few pedestrians whom necessity, or some urgent obligation, had compelled to tramp the pavements laden with snow. A few cabs and... more...

CHAPTER I WHEREIN A LAD SEES MAKERS OF HISTORY "Has any one seen Eric Hamilton?" I asked. For an hour, or more, I had been lounging about the sitting-room of a club in Quebec City, waiting for my friend, who had promised to join me at dinner that night. I threw aside a news-sheet, which I had exhausted down to minutest advertisements, stretched myself and strolled across to a group of old... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LONE PASSENGER That evening the down train from London deposited at the little country station of Ramsdon but a single passenger, a man of middle height, shabbily dressed, with broad shoulders and long arms and a most unusual breadth and depth of chest. Of his face one could see little, for it was covered by a thick growth of dark curly hair, beard, moustache and whiskers, all overgrown... more...

CHAPTER I CAPTAIN LEW GOLDEN would have saved any foreign observer a great deal of trouble in studying America. He was an almost perfect type of the petty small-town middle-class lawyer. He lived in Panama, Pennsylvania. He had never been “captain” of anything except the Crescent Volunteer Fire Company, but he owned the title because he collected rents, wrote insurance, and meddled with lawsuits.... more...

Deep in space lay a weird and threatening world. And it was there that Ben Sessions found the evil daughters . . . Beyond Ventura B there was no life; there was nothing but one worn out sun after another, each with its retinue of cold planets and its trail of dark asteroids. At least that was what the books showed, and the books had been written by men who knew their business. Yet, despite the books... more...

LAST DAYS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. PART I. When, in October, 1864, the European steamer brought us the intelligence of Walter Savage Landor's death, which occurred the month previous at Florence, newspaper readers asked, "Who is Landor?" The few who remember him remotely through the medium of Mr. Hillard's selections from his writings exclaimed, "What! Did he not die long... more...