Chapter 1   Sunday, April 5 6:49 a.m.   Alexa Hampton was awakened by a sensation in her chest. The alarm wasn't set to go off for another eleven minutes, but she knew her sleep was finished. Not again! She rolled over and slapped the blue pillowcase. That little sound from her heart and the twinges of angina, that catchall for heart discomfort, was happening more and more now, just as Dr.... more...

CHAPTER I A MARVELOUS INVENTION I am a hero worshiper; an insatiable devourer of biographies; and I say that no man in all the splendid list ever equaled Edmund Stonewall. You smile because you have never heard his name, for, until now, his biography has not been written. And this is not truly a biography; it is only the story of the crowning event in Stonewall's career. Really it humbles... more...

CHAPTER I The person who, next to the actors themselves, chanced to know most of their story, lived just below ‘Top o’ Town’ (as the spot was called) in an old substantially-built house, distinguished among its neighbours by having an oriel window on the first floor, whence could be obtained a raking view of the High Street, west and east, the former including Laura’s dwelling, the end of the... more...

AUDIENCE AND INTERLOCUTORS. Lieut. John Polkinghorne. R.F.A., of the Battery.Sec. Lieut. Samuel Barham, M.C. R.F.A., of the Battery.Sec. Lieut. Percy Yarrell-Smith. R.F.A., of the BatterySec Lieut. Noel Williams, R.F.A., attached for instruction. But military duties usually restricted the audience to two at a time, though there were three on the night when Barham (Sammy) set his C.O. going with a... more...

TRUE STORIES ABOUT DOGS AND CATS. In a pretty, quiet village in New England lived Mary Chilton. She was a widow. She had two sons; and it was the occupation and the happiness of her life to do all she could to make her boys good and happy. I should say to help and teach them to be good and happy; for boys and girls must make themselves good; and then, of course, they will be happy; and no one can be... more...

ear the end of his fifteenth orbit as Greenland slipped by noiselessly below, he made the routine measurements that tested the operation of his space capsule and checked the automatic instruments which would transmit their stored data to Earth on his next pass over Control. Everything normal; all mechanical devices were operating perfectly. This information didn't surprise him, in fact, he really... more...

"The Italian sculptors of the earlier half of the fifteenth century are more than mere forerunners of the great masters of its close, and often reach perfection within the narrow limits which they chose to impose on their work. Their sculpture shares with the paintings of Botticelli and the churches of Brunelleschi that profound expressiveness, that intimate impress of an indwelling soul, which is... more...

CHAPTER I THE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS If one thing more than another marks modern thought, it is a new insistence on fact. In every sphere of study there is a growing emphasis on verification. Where a generation ago a case seemed to be closed, to-day in the light of new facts it is reopened. Matters that to our grandfathers were trivialities, to be summarily dismissed, are seriously studied. Again and... more...

In introducing this new writer to the English-speaking public, I may be permitted to give a few particulars of himself and his life. Stijn Streuvels is accepted not only in Belgium, but also in Holland as the most distinguished Low-Dutch author of our time: his vogue, in fact, is even greater in the North Netherlands than in the southern kingdom. And I will go further and say that I know no greater... more...

Miracastle: The initial landing had been made on a flat plateau among steep, foreboding mountains which seemed to float through briefly cleared air. In the distance a sharp rock formation stood revealed like an etching: a castle of iron-gray stone whose form had been carved by alien winds and eroded by acid tears from acid clouds. Far above was a halo where the sun should be. The sun was an orange star... more...