INTRODUCTION Experience, this greatest of all teachers, will undoubtedly have convinced many of my readers that the most delightful voyage is only capable of maintaining its charms when made amidst congenial fellow-travelers. The grandest scenes can be fully enjoyed and duly appreciated when viewed through an atmosphere of physical comfort. Thus, in order to demonstrate the accuracy of the assertion:... more...

CHAPTER FIRST. THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STORY. I see old Sylvester Peabody—the head of the Peabody family—seated in the porch of his country dwelling, like an ancient patriarch, in the calm of the morning. His broad-brimmed hat lies on the bench at his side, and his venerable white locks flow down his shoulders, which time in one hundred seasons of battle and sorrow, of harvest and drouth, of toil and... more...

THE COMING OF THE STORKIT was always a puzzle to the little girl how the stork that brought her ever reached the lonely Dakota farm-house on a December afternoon without her being frozen; and it was another mystery, just as deep, how the strange bird, which her mother said was no larger than a blue crane, was able, on leaving, to carry her father away with him to some family, a long, long distance off,... more...

I. White Otter's Own Shadow White Otter's heart was bad. He sat alone on the rim-rocks of the bluffs overlooking the sunlit valley. To an unaccustomed eye from below he might have been a part of nature's freaks among the sand rocks. The yellow grass sloped away from his feet mile after mile to the timber, and beyond that to the prismatic mountains. The variegated lodges of the... more...

CHAPTER I A STORY AND A VISIT At the beginning of the month of September, 1916, there appeared in the Cornhill Magazine a story entitled "The Lost Naval Papers." I had told this story at second hand, for the incidents had not occurred within my personal experience. One of the principals—to whom I had allotted the temporary name of Richard Cary—was an intimate friend,... more...

The last thing that sounded in Richard Duvall's ears as he left the office of Monsieur Lefevre, Prefect of Police of Paris, were the latter's words, spoken in a voice of mingled confidence and alarm, "The fortunes of a nation may depend upon your faithfulness. Go, and God be with you." He entered the automobile which was drawn up alongside the curb, and accompanied by Vernet, one of... more...

TURNING THE BIBLE The place of the beginning of this story was a country neighborhood on a shore, if one may call it so, that divided a forest and prairie in Central Illinois. The date was nearly a lifetime ago. An orange-colored sun going down behind the thrifty orchard of young apple-trees on John Albaugh's farm, put into shadow the front of a dwelling which had stood in wind and weather long... more...

PREFACE The rules of the Royal Institution forbid (and wisely) religious or political controversy.  It was therefore impossible for me in these Lectures, to say much which had to be said, in drawing a just and complete picture of the Ancien Régime in France.  The passages inserted between brackets, which bear on religious matters, were accordingly not spoken at the Royal Institution. But more.  It... more...

THE COIN OF DIONYSIUS It was eight o'clock at night and raining, scarcely a time when a business so limited in its clientele as that of a coin dealer could hope to attract any customer, but a light was still showing in the small shop that bore over its window the name of Baxter, and in the even smaller office at the back the proprietor himself sat reading the latest Pall Mall. His enterprise... more...

INTRODUCTION. The object of the following story has been to weave simple facts into form dependent upon the usages of society during the administration of Sir Howard Douglas, 1824-30. The style is simple and claims no pretensions for complication of plot. Every means has been employed to obtain the most reliable authority upon the facts thus embodied. The writer is deeply indebted to several gentlemen... more...