The habits of the Gulmore household were in some respects primitive. Though it was not yet seven o'clock two negro girls were clearing away the breakfast things under the minute supervision of their mistress, an angular, sharp-faced woman with a reedy voice, and nervously abrupt movements. Near the table sat a girl of nineteen absorbed in a book. In an easy-chair by the open bay-window a man with... more...

JOSEY'S RIDE. "Please mamma, may I go to ride with you?" asked little red-cheeked Josey Codman. Mamma was tying on baby's silk hood, and did not answer for a minute. "I would let him go," urged Aunt Fanny. "He can sit between us; and he wont be a bit of trouble." Josey clapped his hands. "I'm going, mamma, isn't I?" "Can Nurse get him ready quick... more...

CHAPTER I. "REJECTED! rejected!" I crushed the letter spasmodically in my hand as I walked mechanically up and down the length of the dining-room, a rage of anger filling my brain and the blood thundering in my ears. "Rejected! and that not for the first time. Another year and a half's work flung away—simply flung away, and I am no nearer recognition than ever. Incredible it seems... more...

f all the various subjects in the catalogue of sports and pastimes, there is none more sure of arousing the enthusiasm of our American boys generally, than that which forms the title of this book. Traps and Trapping, together with its kindred branches, always have been and always will be subjects of great interest among boys, and particularly so to those who live in the country. It is a fact to be... more...

I guess I'm just a stickler, a perfectionist, but if you do a thing, I always say, you might as well do it right. Everything satisfied me about the security measures on our assignment except one—the official Army designation. Project Hush. I don't know who thought it up, and I certainly would never ask, but whoever it was, he should have known better. Damn it, when you want a project kept... more...

CHAPTER I. BEGINNING OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL MOVEMENT. The constitutional movement of Japan began in a spontaneous agitation of the whole body politic when the nation was irritated by the sudden contact with foreigners. The sense of national weakness added a force to this agitation. Had not the foreigners come, the Restoration might have been effected, feudalism might have been abolished, but the new... more...

CHAPTER I It was the day of the private view at the Royal Academy. The great courtyard of Burlington House was full of carriages, and a continuous stream of guests was pressing up the red-carpeted stairs, over which presided some of the most imposing individuals known to the eyes of Londoners, second only to Her Majesty's beefeaters in glory of scarlet apparel. Inside, however, as it was not yet... more...

"You don't think it's too young for me, girls?" "Young for you—par exemple! I should say not," her niece replied, perking the quivering aigrette still more obliquely upon her aunt's head. Carolyn used par exemple as a good cook uses onion—a hint of it in everything. There were those who said that she interpolated it in the Litany; but Carolyn, who was born Caroline... more...

SPARK I. HOW THE STAR CAME INTO THIS WORLD. To begin with, it all happened a very long time ago,—some say five thousand years, some say ten thousand years, and one wise man says it never happened at all; but even the wise are not wise at all times, and I am inclined to believe that it was in one of those unwise times that the doubt was raised; for I believe it happened, although I am not sure about... more...

INTRODUCTION In giving to the world the record of what, looked at as an adventure only, is I suppose one of the most wonderful and mysterious experiences ever undergone by mortal men, I feel it incumbent on me to explain what my exact connection with it is. And so I may as well say at once that I am not the narrator but only the editor of this extraordinary history, and then go on to tell how it found... more...