Just before Dinner. Mark jumped up. “You there, father! I did not hear you come in.” Doctor Robertson, tutor, half rose from his seat by the glowing library fire. “No, my boy, and I did not hear you come in.” “Why, uncle, you have been sitting there listening!” cried Dean. “To be sure I have. How could I help it, sir? I came in tired, and thought I would have a nap in my own chair till it... more...

INTRODUCTION Just without one of the massive bastioned gates of the city of Fathpur-Sikri there stood in the year 1580 a caravanserai that afforded accommodation for man and beast. Here would alight travellers drawn by the calls of homage, by business, or by curiosity to the famous Town of Victory, built, as the inscription over the gateway told, by "His Majesty, King of Kings, Heaven of the Court,... more...

THE CURLYTOPS AND THEIR PLAYMATES CHAPTER I "When do you s'pose it'll come, Teddy?" "Oh, pretty soon now, I guess. We're all ready for it when it does come," and Ted Martin glanced from where he sat over toward a slanting hill made of several long boards nailed to some tall packing boxes. The boxes were piled high at one end, and on top was a little platform, reached by... more...

CHRISTMAS ON THE DESERTARY was worried. To-morrow would be Christmas. Christmas! a day always spent close to New York City, that place where Santa Claus obtained all the contents of his wonderful pack. Here she was, out in the heart of the great Arizona Desert. Her little head was sorely puzzled over many things. Around her were sand, rocks and mountains; no snow, no ice, save on the tops of the... more...

PURGING OUT THE OLD LEAVEN. While the world was young, nations could be founded peaceably. There was plenty of unoccupied country, and when two neighbouring patriarchs found their flocks were becoming too numerous for the pasture, one said to the other: "Let there be no quarrel, I pray, between thee and me; the whole earth is between us, and the land is watered as the garden of Paradise. If thou... more...

THE FIRST DIALOGUE PHILONOUS. Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find you abroad so early. HYLAS. It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts were so taken up with a subject I was discoursing of last night, that finding I could not sleep, I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden. PHIL. It happened well, to let you see what innocent and agreeable pleasures you lose every morning. Can... more...

PREFACE Early in the last century the hardy wood-choppers began to come west, out of Vermont. They founded their homes in the Adirondack wildernesses and cleared their rough acres with the axe and the charcoal pit. After years of toil in a rigorous climate they left their sons little besides a stumpy farm and a coon-skin overcoat. Far from the centres of life their amusements, their humours, their... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                              MARCH & APRIL                                1665-1666 March 1st. Up, and to the office and there all the morning sitting and at noon to dinner with my Lord Bruncker, Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen at the White Horse in Lumbard Streete,... more...

"Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?" "I've been to London, to see the Queen.""Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you there?" "I caught a little mouse under the chair," Her mother said it three times. And each time the Baby Harriett laughed. The sound of her laugh was so funny that she laughed again at that; she kept on laughing, with shriller and shriller squeals.... more...

Chapter I. Life till Marriage, and Work till the Publication of the Poems of 1853. Even those who are by no means greedy of details as to the biography of authors, may without inconsistency regret that Matthew Arnold’s Letters do not begin till he was just five-and-twenty. And then they are not copious, telling us in particular next to nothing about his literary work (which is, later, their constant... more...