CHAPTER I. I belong to a race, the sole end of whose existence is to give pleasure to others. None will deny the goodness of such an end, and I flatter myself most persons will allow that we amply fulfil it. Few of the female sex especially but will acknowledge, with either the smile or the sigh called forth by early recollections, that much of their youthful happiness was due to our presence; and some... more...

Do you know what envy means? I hope you have never felt it, for it is a very wicked feeling. It is being sorry when another has any good thing. Perhaps you will know better what the word means when you have read my story; and I hope it will help you to keep the feeling away from your own heart. Not far from Mr. Lee's house, in Riverdale, lived a man by the name of Green. He was the agent of one of... more...

"Kate!" said Mrs. Lamb to her daughter, who was playing in the garden, in front of the house. "What do you want, mother?" replied the little girl, without even lifting her eyes from the ground, in which she was planting a marigold. I don't think any of my young readers regard this as a proper answer for a little girl to make to her mother; and I hope none of them ever speak to... more...

Begins the Story with a Peculiar Meeting. Necessity is the mother of invention. This is undoubtedly true, but it is equally true that invention is not the only member of necessity’s large family. Change of scene and circumstance are also among her children. It was necessity that gave birth to the resolve to travel to the end of the earth—of English earth at all events—in search of fortune, which... more...

Valuable Booty. A good many years ago, before, indeed, I can remember, His Majesty’s Ship Laurel, a corvette of eighteen guns and a hundred and thirty men, commanded by Captain Blunt, formed one of the West India squadron. She, with another corvette, and a brig in company, came one fine morning off a beautiful island, then in possession of the French, although, as Dick Driver, from whom I got the... more...

Self and Friends. Bigley Uggleston always said that it was in 1753, because he vowed that was the hot year when we had gone home for the midsummer holidays from Barnstaple Grammar-school. Bob Chowne stuck out, as he always would when he knew he was wrong, that it was in 1755, and when I asked him why he put it then, he held up his left hand with his fingers and thumb spread out, which was always his... more...

A FRAGMENT Part I"Those never lovedWho dream that they 'loved once.'"—E. B. Browning."Youwon't be long any way, dear Auntie?" said Sylvia with a little sigh. "I don't half like your going. Couldn't you wait till the day after to-morrow?""Or at least take me with you," said Molly, Sylvia's younger sister, eagerly. Auntie hesitated—she... more...

The Play Commences. Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so “microscopically” small that—but let us not anticipate. About the darkest hour of a very dark night, in the year 1883, a large brig lay becalmed on the Indian Ocean, not far from that region of the Eastern world which is associated in some minds with spices, volcanoes, coffee, and piratical junks, namely, the Malay... more...

Introductory. We belong to a Cornish family of the greatest respectability and high antiquity—so say the county records, in which we have every reason to place the most unbounded confidence. The Tregellins have possessed the same estate for I do not know exactly how long; only I suppose it must have been some time after Noah disembarked from the ark, and, at all events, for a very long time. The... more...

THE PICTURE. H, Madge, just stay as you are; there—your head a little more turned this way.""But, Raymond, I can't possibly make the toast if I do." "Never mind the toast; I shan't be many minutes," said the boy who was painting in the window, while he mixed some colours in an excited, eager manner. "The fire is very hot. Mayn't I move just to one side?"... more...