THE PHANTOM SCIMITAR I was not the only passenger aboard the S.S. Mandalay who perceived the disturbance and wondered what it might portend and from whence proceed. A goodly number of passengers were joining the ship at Port Said. I was lounging against the rail, pipe in mouth, lazily wondering, with a large vagueness. What a heterogeneous rabble it was!—a brightly coloured rabble, but the colours... more...

CHAPTER I. THE NAUGHTY GIRL. "Now you will be a good girl, Fanny Jane, while I am gone—won't you?" said Fanny Grant, who has several times before appeared in these stories, to Fanny Jane Grant, her namesake, who has not before been presented to our readers. "O, yes, Miss Fanny; I will be ever so good; I won't even look wrong," replied Fanny Jane, whose snapping black eyes... more...

Part First "Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women… O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do thus?"—Esdras.   I  The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry. The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart... more...

Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, N.C., December 29, 1808. His parents were very poor. When he was 4 years old his father died of injuries received in rescuing a person from drowning. At the age of 10 years Andrew was apprenticed to a tailor. His early education was almost entirely neglected, and, notwithstanding his natural craving to learn, he never spent a day in school. Was taught... more...

Section 1 The maid was a young woman of great natural calmness; she was accustomed to let in visitors who had this air of being annoyed and finding one umbrella too numerous for them. It mattered nothing to her that the gentleman was asking for Dr. Martineau as if he was asking for something with an unpleasant taste. Almost imperceptibly she relieved him of his umbrella and juggled his hat and coat on... more...

THE FARMER'S WIFE. It is an evening in June, and the skies that have been weeping of late, owing to some calamity best known to themselves, have suddenly dried their eyes, and called up a smile to enliven their gloomy countenances. The farmers, who have been shaking their heads at sight of the unmown grass, and predicting a bad hay-harvest, are beginning to brighten up with the weather, and to... more...

The following History is given in a series of letters, written Principally in a double yet separate correspondence; Between two young ladies of virtue and honor, bearing an inviolable friendship for each other, and writing not merely for amusement, but upon the most interesting subjects; in which every private family, more or less, may find itself concerned; and, Between two gentlemen of free lives;... more...

CHAPTER I Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the... more...

There is sorrow in Beechenbrook Cottage; the dayHas been bright with the earliest glory of May;The blue of the sky is as tender a blueAs ever the sunshine came shimmering through:The songs of the birds and the hum of the bees,As they merrily dart in and out of the trees,—The blooms of the orchard, as sifting its snows,It mingles its odors with hawthorn and rose,—The voice of the brook, as it lapses... more...

PROLOGUE A STORY BEFORE THE STORY On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was about her. There was so very, very much beauty—the sky, azure blue overhead and paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like waves of a sea, the... more...