THE CHASE OF SAINT-CASTIN. The waiting April woods, sensitive in every leafless twig to spring, stood in silence and dim nightfall around a lodge. Wherever a human dwelling is set in the wilderness, it becomes, by the very humility of its proportions, a prominent and aggressive point. But this lodge of bark and poles was the color of the woods, and nearly escaped intruding as man's work. A glow... more...

INTRODUCTION WHAT are the best fairy stories? Are they not those which have lived most vividly in active minds? The ripeness of after life works its changes; but we are not dealing with literary judgments—rather with the choice of childhood which fortunately lingers in memory, whatever store of wisdom may come in later years. There is here no question of the new or unusual. On the contrary, it is the... more...

THE FIRST CHAPTER. Hitherto haue we spoken of the inhabitants of this Ile before the comming of Brute, although some will néeds haue it, that he was the first which inhabited the same with his people descended of the Troians, some few giants onelie excepted whom he vtterlie destroied, and left not one of them aliue through the whole Ile. But as we shall not doubt of Brutes comming hither, so may we... more...

Rambling on foot in the spring of my life and the summer of the year, I came one afternoon to a point which gave me the choice of three directions. Straight before me, the main road extended its dusty length to Boston; on the left a branch went towards the sea, and would have lengthened my journey a trifle of twenty or thirty miles; while by the right-hand path, I might have gone over hills and lakes... more...

CHAPTER I. OURSELVES. WE were three quiet, lonely old men, and SHE was a lively, handsome young woman, and we were at our wits' end what to do with her. A word about ourselves, first of all—a necessary word, to explain the singular situation of our fair young guest. We are three brothers; and we live in a barbarous, dismal old house called The Glen Tower. Our place of abode stands in a hilly,... more...

PLAIN WORDS FROM AMERICA February, 1916. Your two letters, with enclosed newspaper clippings, and your postal card were duly received. I can assure you that my failure to reply more promptly was not meant as any discourtesy. The clippings were gladly received, for I am always anxious to read what prominent Germans regard as able and convincing presentations of their side of disputed matters. Your own... more...

CHAPTER I. THE OWNER OF RIVERSIDE. All the day long the September rain had fallen, and when the night closed in it showed no sign of weariness, but with the same monotonous patter dropped upon the roof, or beat against the windows of the pleasantly lighted room where a young man sat gazing at the glowing grate, and listening apparently to the noise of the storm without. But neither the winds, nor yet... more...

CHILD LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY FANCHON FANCHON went early one morning, like Little Red Riding-Hood, to see her grandmother, who lives right at the other end of the village. But Fanchon did not stop like little Red Riding-Hood, to gather nuts in the wood. She went straight on her way and she did not meet the wolf. From a long way off she saw her grandmother sitting on the stone step at her cottage door,... more...

CHAPTER I THE WAY IT ALL HAPPENED I WAS very young and I was engaged to be married. We had just lost our money in rather dramatic fashion, and we were all doing what we could to supply the sudden deficit. My sister began to prepare herself to be a teacher, my brother left his boarding school and came home to go into a friend's office, and I—well, I accepted the hand and heart of the young man in... more...

SALVATION FROM SIN. —and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.—Matthew i. 21. I would help some to understand what Jesus came from the home of our Father to be to us and do for us. Everything in the world is more or less misunderstood at first: we have to learn what it is, and come at length to see that it must be so, that it could not be otherwise. Then we... more...