THE HILL CHAPTER I THE MANOR   "Five hundred faces, and all so strange!    Life in front of me—home behind,    I felt like a waif before the wind  Tossed on an ocean of shock and change.   "Chorus. Yet the time may come, as the years go by,    When your heart will thrill    At the thought of the Hill,  And the day that you came so strange and shy." The train slid... more...

CHAPTER I THE EPISODE OF THE PATIENT WHO DISAPPOINTED HER DOCTOR Hilda Wade's gift was so unique, so extraordinary, that I must illustrate it, I think, before I attempt to describe it. But first let me say a word of explanation about the Master. I have never met anyone who impressed me so much with a sense of GREATNESS as Professor Sebastian. And this was not due to his scientific eminence alone:... more...

Miss Howe pushed the portière aside with a curved hand and gracefully separated fingers; it was a staccato movement, and her body followed it after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, eyes inquiring, and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who was there. You would have been aware at once that she was an actress. She entered the room with a little stride, and... more...

CHAPTER I. A DAY OF TROUBLE. "They've seen us! Run for it!" My chosen friend, Miles Coverthorne, was the speaker. He sprang to his feet as he uttered the words, and darted like a rabbit into the bushes, I myself following hard at his heels. The seasons seem to have come earlier in those days, and though May was not out, the woods and countryside appeared clothed with all the richness of... more...

Hotel Massilon, N. Y.April 25My dearest Anne, Please forgive the delay in replying to your letters and cable. The truth is that I was quite unable to write, anxious as I was to do so. It's a rather long story, but I would like to explain just how this came to be and so prove how unfounded your suspicions were. You see, shortly after I arrived here, I ran into a Professor Phelps-Smythe Burdinghaugh,... more...

CHAPTER IAN EVENT IN MR. SKELLORN'S LIFE I The Lessways household, consisting of Hilda and her widowed mother, was temporarily without a servant. Hilda hated domestic work, and because she hated it she often did it passionately and thoroughly. That afternoon, as she emerged from the kitchen, her dark, defiant face was full of grim satisfaction in the fact that she had left a kitchen polished and... more...

CHAPTER I THE COMPLETE HERO Harry Boyce addressed Queen Anne in glittering verse. She was not present. She had, however, no cause to regret that, for he was tramping the Great North Road at four miles by the hour—a pace far beyond the capacity of Her Majesty's legs; and his verses were Latin—a language not within the capacity of Her Majesty's mind. Her absence gave him no grief. In all... more...

Some succeed while others fail. This is a recognized fact; yet history tells us that seven-tenths of our most successful men began life poor. As our title indicates, we shall endeavor to show "why some succeed while others fail." Knowing that everybody desires success, and recognizing the old adage, "Example is the best of teachers," we have selected representative characters from the... more...

Introduction Many years have passed by since, delivering the Inaugural Lecture of the Irish Literary Society in London, I advocated as one of its chief aims the recasting into modern form and in literary English of the old Irish legends, preserving the atmosphere of the original tales as much as possible, but clearing them from repetitions, redundant expressions, idioms interesting in Irish but... more...

TALE 1. A new Arabian Night's Entertainment. At the foot of the great mountain Hirgonqúu was anciently situated the kingdom of Larbidel. Geographers, who are not apt to make such just comparisons, said, it resembled a football just going to be kicked away; and so it happened; for the mountain kicked the kingdom into the ocean, and it has never been heard of since. One day a young princess had... more...