CHAPTER I DOWN PENDRAGON HILL Ta-ra! ta-ra! ta-ra-ra-ra! ta-rat! Professor Krenner took the silver bugle from his lips while the strain echoed flatly from the opposite, wooded hill. That hill was the Isle of Hope, a small island of a single eminence lying half a mile off the mainland, and not far north of Freeling. The shore of Lake Huron was sheathed in ice. It was almost Christmas time. Winter had... more...

CHAPTER I.THE LOVING PUSS. Fidelle, Minnie’s second pet, was a beautiful tortoise-shell cat. She was an elegant creature. Her fur was of moderate length, of pure black, white, and reddish orange. Her eyes were large, bright, and affectionate in expression. Her form was delicate, and her motions active. In character, she was the most attached, graceful little puss I ever knew. The moment Fidelle heard... more...

Jonathan Swift was born in 1667, on the 30th of November.  His father was a Jonathan Swift, sixth of the ten sons of the Rev. Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, near Ross, in Herefordshire, who had married Elizabeth Dryden, niece to the poet Dryden’s grandfather.  Jonathan Swift married, at Leicester, Abigail Erick, or Herrick, who was of the family that had given to England Robert Herrick, the... more...

CHAPTER I THE ROSEWOOD BOX The telephone bell cut sharp into Polly’s story. She was recounting one of the merry hours that Mrs. Jocelyn had given to her and Leonora, while Dr. Dudley and his wife were taking their wedding journey. Still dimpling with laughter, she ran across to the instrument; but as she turned back from the message her face was troubled. “Father says I am to come right over to the... more...

THE INVASION His name was Jimsy and he took it for granted that you liked him. That made things difficult from the very start—that and the fact that he arrived in the village two days before Christmas strung to such a holiday pitch of expectation that, if you were a respectable, bewhiskered first citizen like Jimsy's host, you felt the cut-and-dried dignity of a season which unflinching thrift... more...

CHAPTER I. Locality and Political Divisions of Aztec Land.—Spanish Historians.—Boundaries.—Climate.—Egyptian Resemblances.—Products of the Country.—Antiquities.—Origin of Races.—Early Civilization.—Pictorial Writings.—Aboriginal Money.—Aztec Religious Sacrifices.—A Voluptuous Court.—Mexican Independence.—European Civilization introduced by Cortez.—Civil Wars.—The... more...

WOMAN'S WORK. "The rights of woman, what are they?The right to labour and to pray;The right to succour in distress;The right, when others curse; to bless;The right to lead the soul to God,Along the path the Saviour trod." What is woman's work? This is one of the vexed questions of to-day, and it is one which, doubtless, sometimes troubled the unwilling brains of our forefathers,... more...

ONE AND INFINITE God is One, and Infinite. The true quality of the Infinite does not appear; for the human mind, however highly analytical and exalted, is itself finite, and the finiteness in it cannot be laid aside. It is not fitted, therefore, to see the Infinity of God, and thus God, as He is in Himself, but can see God from behind in shadow; as it is said of Moses, when he asked to see God, that he... more...

THE FAIR IMPERIA The Archbishop of Bordeaux had added to his suite when going to the Council at Constance quite a good-looking little priest of Touraine whose ways and manner of speech was so charming that he passed for a son of La Soldee and the Governor. The Archbishop of Tours had willingly given him to his confrere for his journey to that town, because it was usual for archbishops to make each... more...

Chapter One. Aunt Janet’s Visit. “Up to the fifth landing, and then straight on. You canna miss the door.” For a moment the person thus addressed stood gazing up into the darkness of the narrow staircase, and then turned wearily to the steep ascent. No wonder she was weary; for at the dawn of that long August day, now closing so dimly over the smoky town, her feet had pressed the purple heather... more...