BOTH GIRLS WERE SO STUNNINGLY PRETTY, AND WORE SUCH ODD, BEWITCHING COSTUMES ON THEIR TANDEM, THAT THE PEOPLE WHO STOPPED TO WATCH THE BEAUTIES AS THEY WHIRLED BY NICKNAMED THEM "THE HEAVENLY TWINS." As Jay Gardiner drove down the village street behind his handsome pair of prancing bays, holding the ribbons skillfully over them, all the village maidens promenading up the village street or... more...

MESSER MARCO POLO The message came to me, at the second check of the hunt, that a countryman and a clansman needed me. The ground was heavy, the day raw, and it was a drag, too fast for fun and too tame for sport. So I blessed the countryman and the clansman, and turned my back on the field. But when they told me his name, I all but fell from the saddle. "But that man's dead!" But he... more...

CHAPTER I "Please continue, Peggy. You were telling me who were there and what they wore. Oh, dear! I am so sorry mother would not give me leave to go. Was it all too gay?" "It was wonderful!" was the deliberate reply. "We might have danced till now had not Washington planned that sudden attack. We had to leave then,—that was early this morning,—and I spent the day abed." It... more...

The 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers is one of the oldest regiments in the service. It was raised in February and March, 1661, to form the garrison of Bombay, which had been ceded to the Crown as part of the dowry of the Infanta of Portugal, on her marriage with King Charles II. It then consisted of four companies, the establishment of each being one captain, one lieutenant, one ensign, two... more...

CHAPTER I THE MAN IN SECTION THIRTEENBARBARA THURSTON awakened with a violent start."Wha—a-at is it?" she muttered, then opened her eyes wide. In the darkness of the Pullman berth she could see nothing at all save a faint perpendicular line of light at the edges of the curtains that enclosed the section. "I—I wonder what made me wake up so suddenly?" Barbara put out a groping hand.... more...

EARLY DAYS To be born on the 28th of February is not altogether without its compensations. It affords a subject of conversation when you are asked to put your name in birthday books. It is evident that many people suppose it to be almost an intrusion to appear on that day. However, it was perfectly satisfactory to me so long as it was not the 29th. As a boy, that was all for which I cared. Still, I... more...

THE LINGUISTER The mental image of the world is of individual and varying compass. It may be likened to one of those curious Chinese balls of quaintly carved ivory, containing other balls, one within another, the proportions ever dwindling with each successive inclosure, yet each a more minute duplicate of the external sphere. This might seem the least world of all,—the restricted limits of the... more...

CHAPTER I Though there was nothing visibly graceful about Michael Comber, he apparently had the art of giving gracefully. He had already told his cousin Francis, who sat on the arm of the sofa by his table, that there was no earthly excuse for his having run into debt; but now when the moment came for giving, he wrote the cheque quickly and eagerly, as if thoroughly enjoying it, and passed it over to... more...

PREFACE Romances of the future, however fantastic they may be, have for most of us a perennial if mild interest, since they are born of a very common feeling—a sense of dissatisfaction with the existing order of things, combined with a vague faith in or hope of a better one to come. The picture put before us is false; we knew it would be false before looking at it, since we cannot imagine what is... more...

SEA-HOARDINGSMy heart is open again and sea flows in,It shall fill with a summer of mists and winds and clouds and waves breaking,Of gull-wings over the green tide, of the surf's drenching din,Of sudden horizon-sails that come and vanish, phantom-thin,Of arching sapphire skies, deep and unaching.I shall lie on the rocks just over the weeds that drapeThe clear sea-pools, where birth and death in... more...