CHAPTER I WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT A YOUNG AMERICAN HAD THE COURAGE TO COME INTO A NEW COUNTRY; HOW FATE PLAYED AGAINST HIM, AND A NEIGHBOR LOOKED LONGINGLY AT HIS RANCH Looking back now, after so many months of struggle and foreboding, he wondered how he had ever had the high courage to come to this strange country. Had he been a few years older he would not have started forth—he was sure of that... more...

Countess Coronini—A Lover's Pique—Reconciliation—The First Meeting—APhilosophical Parenthesis My beautiful nun had not spoken to me, and I was glad of it, for I was so astonished, so completely under the spell of her beauty, that I might have given her a very poor opinion of my intelligence by the rambling answers which I should very likely have given to her questions. I knew her to be... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BROOK FARM MOVEMENT. Early in the present century, New England was the centre of progressive religious thought in America. A morbid theology had reigned supreme, but its forms were too cold, harsh and forbidding to attract or even retain the liberal-minded, educated and philosophic students of the rising generation, or hold in check the ardent humanitarian spirit, that... more...

INTRODUCTION California is proving itself more and more the wonderland of the United States. Its hosts of annual visitors are increasing with marvelous rapidity; its population is growing by accretions from the other states faster than any other section in the civilized world. The reasons are not far to seek. They may be summarized in five words, viz., climate, topography, healthfulness, productiveness... more...

CHAPTER I. A FEUDAL CASTLE.IT was the age of chain armour and tournaments—of iron barons and barons' wars—of pilgrims and armed pilgrimages—of forests and forest outlaws—when Henry III. reigned as King of England, and the feudal system, though no longer rampant, was still full of life and energy; when Louis King of France, afterwards canonised as St. Louis, undertook one of the last and... more...

The Camp of the Young Yagers. Near the confluence of the two great rivers of Southern Africa—the Yellow and Orange—behold the camp of the “young yagers!” It stands upon the southern bank of the latter stream, in a grove of Babylonian willows, whose silvery foliage, drooping gracefully to the water’s edge, fringes both shores of the noble river as far as the eye can reach. A... more...

MARCH Early in the gray and red dawn of a March morning in 1883, two wagons moved slowly out of Boomtown, the two-year-old "giant of the plains." As the teams drew past the last house, the strangeness of the scene appealed irresistibly to the newly arrived immigrants. The town lay behind them on the level, treeless plain like a handful of blocks pitched upon a russet robe. Its houses were... more...

CHAPTER I Patty Sinclair reined in her horse at the top of a low divide and gazed helplessly around her. The trail that had grown fainter and fainter with its ascent of the creek bed disappeared entirely at the slope of loose rock and bunch grass that slanted steeply to the divide. In vain she scanned the deeply gored valley that lay before her and the timbered slopes of the mountains for sign of human... more...

THE HISTORY OF TOM THUMB It is said that in the days of the famed Prince Arthur, who was king of Britain, in the year 516, there lived a great magician, called Merlin, the most learned and skilful enchanter in the world at that time. This great magician, who could assume any form he pleased, was travelling in the disguise of a poor beggar, and being very much fatigued, he stopped at the cottage of an... more...

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