I THE CABULIWALLAH My five years' old daughter Mini cannot live without chattering. I really believe that in all her life she has not wasted a minute in silence. Her mother is often vexed at this, and would stop her prattle, but I would not. To see Mini quiet is unnatural, and I cannot bear it long. And so my own talk with her is always lively. One morning, for instance, when I was in the midst of... more...

Chapter I     "Little Next Door—her years are few—    Loves me, more than her elders do;    Says, my wrinkles become me so;    Marvels much at the tales I know.    Says, we shall marry when she is grown——" The little happy song stopped short. John Wesley Pringle, at the mesa's last headland, drew rein to adjust his geography. This was new country to him. Close... more...

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THE START FOR THE MIDNIGHT SUN “ Well, fellows,” said Jesse Wilcox, the youngest of the three boys who stood now at the ragged railway station of Athabasca Landing, where they had just disembarked, “here we are once more. For my part, I’m ready to start right now.” He spoke somewhat pompously for a youth no more than fifteen years of age. John Hardy and Rob McIntyre, his two companions,... more...

CHAPTER I Murray McTavish was seated at a small table, green-baized, littered with account-books and a profusion of papers. But he was not regarding these things. Instead, his dark, intelligent eyes were raised to the smallish, dingy window in front of him, set in its deep casing of centuries-old logs. Nor was the warm light shining in his eyes inspired by the sufficiently welcome sunlight beyond. His... more...

THE LIFE OF TERENCE. Publius Terentius Afer, a native of Carthage, was a slave, at Rome, of the senator Terentius Lucanus, who, struck by his abilities and handsome person, gave him not only a liberal education in his youth, but his freedom when he arrived at years of maturity. Some say that he was a captive taken in war, but this, as Fenestella [925] informs us, could by no means have been the case,... more...

CHAPTER I.   YOU still are what you were, sir!    . . . . . .  . . . With most quick agility could turn  And return; make knots and undo them,  Give forked counsel.—Volpone, or the Fox. BEFORE a large table, covered with parliamentary papers, sat Lumley Lord Vargrave. His complexion, though still healthy, had faded from the freshness of hue which distinguished him in youth. His features,... more...

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CHAPTER I. THE ARREST. “Oh, you little wretch! What are you about? You dreadfully sinful little creature. Police, police!” The speaker, a richly dressed woman, was just entering the spacious dining-room, as she caught sight of a dusky little form in the act of taking a set of silver spoons from the heavy gold-lined holder. The child raised a pair of coal-black eyes to the lady’s face as she... more...

Some thousands of years ago there was a city in Mesopotamia called Surippak. One night a strange dream came to a dweller therein, whose name, if rightly reported, was Hasisadra. The dream foretold the speedy coming of a great flood; and it warned Hasisadra to lose no time in building a ship, in which, when notice was given, he, his family and friends, with their domestic animals and a collection of... more...