THE ROOM IN BLACK They say that every man should have a master, but, for my part, I prefer a mistress. Give me a nice young woman with plenty of money in her pocket, and a bit of taste for seeing life, and I'll leave you all the prying "amatoors" that ever sniffed about a gear-box without knowing what was inside that same. I have driven plenty of pretty girls in my life; but I don't... more...

CHAPTER I The Bruised Reed The fair girl who was playing a banjo and singing to the wounded soldiers suddenly stopped, and, turning to the surgeon, whispered: “What’s that?” “It sounds like a mob——” With a common impulse they moved to the open window of the hospital and listened. On the soft spring air came the roar of excited thousands sweeping down the avenue from the Capitol toward the... more...

CHAPTER I—OVER THE BORDER At Semlin I still was encompassed by the scenes and the sounds of familiar life; the din of a busy world still vexed and cheered me; the unveiled faces of women still shone in the light of day.  Yet, whenever I chose to look southward, I saw the Ottoman’s fortress—austere, and darkly impending high over the vale of the Danube—historic Belgrade.  I had come, as it... more...

LOOKING COLLEGEWARD "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" By no possibility could Aunt Alvirah Boggs have risen from her low rocking chair in the Red Mill kitchen without murmuring this complaint. She was a little, hoop-backed woman, with crippled limbs; but she possessed a countenance that was very much alive, nut-brown and innumerably wrinkled though it was. She had been Mr. Jabez Potter's... more...

GEORGE GORING, EARL OF NORWICH, AND HIS SON GEORGE, LORD GORING. G.'s inquiry (Vol. i., p. 22.) about the two Gorings of the Civil War—a period of our history in which I am much interested—has led me to look into some of the sources of original information for that time, in the hope that I might be enabled to answer his Queries. I regret I cannot yet answer his precise questions, when Lord... more...

Mr Harwood and Alethea in Sherwood Forest, and Jack Deane’s First Adventure. Romantic Sherwood! Its pristine glories since the days when bold Robin Hood and his merrie men held sway within its borders, and levied taxes from the passers-by, had sadly dwindled even in the year 1696, when our history commences. The woodman’s axe had been busy and the plough had gone over the land, and mansions and... more...

THE SPOTTED FAWN When Nimble's mother first looked at him she couldn't believe she would ever be able to raise him. He was such a tiny, frail, spotted thing that he seemed too delicate for a life of adventure on the wooded ridges and in the tangled swamps under the shadow of Blue Mountain. "Bless me!" cried the good lady. "This child's not much taller than an overgrown beet... more...

CHAPTER I.A GLANCE AT THE PAST. “Don't worry about it, mother. It is nothing we can help.” “It seems to me that I might have helped it. If I had gone to General Gordon when your father first spoke about that barrel with the eighty thousand dollars in it, and told him the whole story, things might have turned out differently. But in spite of all he said, I did not suppose that he was in... more...

CHAPTER I "But I say it's not fair!" cried a red-headed lad, drawing himself up to his full height. "You're not playing fair with us!" "Ach, it is not so!" protested the one to whom the boy spoke. "We find you an enemy in our city, and you must take the consequences!" "Just because you wear an officer's uniform," retorted the boy, beginning to lose... more...

PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. CHAPTER I.THE RISE AND PROGRESS of TAXIDERMY. TAXIDERMY, which is derived from two Greek words, a literal translation of which would signify the "arrangement of skins," appears to have been practised in a limited degree ages ago, for may we not say without doubt that the first taxidermists were the ancient Egyptians, who, despite the fact that they seldom or never appear to... more...