TEA Tastes differ as to which of the many kinds of tea is the best, and yet the general use of English Breakfast and Oolong warrants the recommending of these two teas as standard. The Chinese have taught us the correct idea of tea drinking; to have it always freshly made, with the water boiling, and to steep the leaves at table. The tea table can be easily equipped now with a boiler in silver or... more...

Chapter I Vacation Plans Charley Russell sat before a table in the workshop in his father's back yard. In front of him were the shining instruments of his wireless outfit--his coupler, his condenser, his helix, his spark-gap, and the other parts, practically all of which he had made with his own hands. Ordinarily he would have looked at them fondly, but now he gave them hardly a thought. He was... more...

CHAPTER 1 Of all the remote streams of influence that pour both before and after birth into the channel of our being, what an insignificant few—and these only the more obvious—are traceable at all. We swim in a sea of environment and heredity, are tossed hither and thither by we know not what cross currents of Fate, are tugged at by a thousand eddies of which we never dream. The sum of it all makes... more...

Near where St. Abb stretches, in massive strength, into the sea, still terrible, even in ruins, may be seen the remains of Fast Castle, one of the most interesting in its history—as it is the most fearfully romantic in its situation—of all the mouldering strongholds which are still to be traced among the Borders, like monuments of war, crumbling into nothingness beneath the silent but destroying... more...

PART I Opposite Miss Eudora Yates's old colonial mansion was the perky modern Queen Anne residence of Mrs. Joseph Glynn. Mrs. Glynn had a daughter, Ethel, and an unmarried sister, Miss Julia Esterbrook. All three were fond of talking, and had many callers who liked to hear the feebly effervescent news of Wellwood. This afternoon three ladies were there: Miss Abby Simson, Mrs. John Bates, and Mrs.... more...

On the Upper DeckSic itur ad astra.One morning in December the steamer Tabo was laboriously ascending the tortuous course of the Pasig, carrying a large crowd of passengers toward the province of La Laguna. She was a heavily built steamer, almost round, like the tabú from which she derived her name, quite dirty in spite of her pretensions to whiteness, majestic and grave from her leisurely motion.... more...

FOREWORD The reader who is willing to give the following pages a careful reading, and a courteous hearing, is entitled to know the basis of study, observation or experience from which the suggestions, inferences and conclusions proceed, in order that he may fairly estimate their value. At the age of seventy-two, my egotism is at least softened by the discovery of the many things I do not know; and my... more...

INTRODUCTION. Medals, by means of the engraver's art, perpetuate in a durable form and within a small compass which the eye can embrace at a glance, not only the features of eminent persons, but the dates, brief accounts, and representations (direct or emblematical) of events; they rank, therefore, among the most valuable records of the past, especially when they recall men, deeds, or... more...

"ARE YOU HANSARD NOW?" Merchant of Venice. ["The entire stock of Hansard's Parliamentary Debates ... was offered for sale. The vast collection, nearly 100,000 volumes, scarcely fetched the price of waste paper."—Daily Paper.] The Auctioneer exclaimed,—"These Vols. Have neither fault nor blot. I think that I, without demur, May call them quite 'a lot.'... more...

AUTHOR'S NOTE. This little volume will soon assume the proportions of an invaluable reference book as the Divorcee is gradually becoming extinct in South Dakota. Species may thrive in a given latitude and longitude for ages. Suddenly the atmospheric, climatic, or diatetic conditions become so altered as to preclude the further development of the species—yes even the further survival of the... more...