§1 The motor-car entered a little white gate, came to a porch under a thick wig of jasmine, and stopped. The chauffeur indicated by a movement of the head that this at last was it. A tall young woman with a big soft mouth, great masses of blue-black hair on either side of a broad, low forehead, and eyes of so dark a brown you might have thought them black, drooped forward and surveyed the house with a... more...

The Widow."WHAT would you say," asked the widow, tucking her skirts cautiously about her patent leather toes and leaning back luxuriously against the variegated pillows, "if I should tell you that I have found the very girl who would make you a model wife?"The bachelor glanced up indifferently and dipped the paddle lazily into the water. "What model?" he asked, suspiciously.... more...

CHAPTER I. Breaking the News. "Mamma, what was that I heard papa saying to you this morning about his lawsuit?" "I cannot tell you just now. Ellen, pick up that shawl and spread it over me." "Mamma! are you cold in this warm room?" "A little, there, that will do. Now, my daughter, let me be quiet a while don't disturb me." There was no one else in the room. Driven... more...

DEFINITIONS. WORRY. A state of undue solicitude. HYPOCHONDRIA. A morbid mental condition characterized by undue solicitude regarding the health, and undue attention to matters thereto pertaining. OBSESSION. An unduly insistent and compulsive thought, habit of mind, or tendency to action. DOUBTING FOLLY (Folie du doute.) A state of mind characterized by a tendency unduly to question, argue and speculate... more...

I The three or four "To Let" boards had stood within the low paling as long as the inhabitants of the little triangular "Square" could remember, and if they had ever been vertical it was a very long time ago. They now overhung the palings each at its own angle, and resembled nothing so much as a row of wooden choppers, ever in the act of falling upon some passer-by, yet never cutting... more...

CHAPTER I When Mr. O'Callaghan died, after a long, severe, and expensive sickness, he left to his widow a state of unlimited poverty and seven boys. "Sure, an' sivin's the parfect number," she said through her tears as she looked round on her flock; "and Tim was the bist man as iver lived, may the saints presarve him an' rist him from his dreadful pains!" Thus did... more...

CHAPTER ONECATHERINE’S INSPIRATION “Alma Mater, Dexter darling, do re mi–O dear! It’s much harder to write than I supposed. I wonder why! When your heart is full of love, why should it be hard to express it?” Catherine Smith, sitting on the top step of the porch of her home, Three Gables, bent her red-gold head over the pad of paper on her knee and wrote painfully, her forehead puckered... more...

CHAPTER I. THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES IS NOT A NEW PEOPLE. Many americans, and a few foreigners, think that America is yet too young a country for possessing a National Literature. If they intend to say, that the number of classical writers of America, cannot yet compete with the number of classical writers of any old country, of course, it cannot be otherwise. But, that the living present... more...

MATERIAL FOR A PUBLIC LIBRARY CAMPAIGN One of the most effective means of conducting a library campaign, especially in its early stage, is through the press. Not only will the reading and thinking part of the people thereby be reached, but any library editorial appearing in a newspaper, will, because of the public notice given it, receive greater consideration than if printed elsewhere. Library... more...

CHAPTER I When the widow of Martino Consalvi married young Corbario, people shook their heads and said that she was making a great mistake. Consalvi had been dead a good many years, but as yet no one had thought it was time to say that his widow was no longer young and beautiful, as she had always been. Many rich widows remain young and beautiful as much as a quarter of a century, or even longer, and... more...