A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA Time touches all things with destroying hand; and if he seem now and then to bestow the bloom of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a brief mockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the wrinkles of old age, the dry leaves and bare branches of winter. And yet there are places where Time seems to linger lovingly long after youth has departed, and to which he seems... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XXV. THE SKELETON IS MCLAUGHLIN'S CLOSET. Night, spotted with stars, like a black leopard, crouched once more upon Bumsteadville, and her one eye to be seen in profile, the moon, glared upon the helpless place with something of a cat's nocturnal stare of glassy vision for a stupefied mouse. Midnight had come with its... more...

In flower of youth and beauty's pride." DRYDEN A crowded New York street,—Fifth Avenue at the height of the afternoon; a gallant and brilliant throng. Looking over the glittering array, the purple and fine linen, the sweeping robes, the exquisite equipages, the stately houses; the faces, delicate and refined, proud, self-satisfied, that gazed out from their windows on the street, or that... more...

AT NEW CONSTANTINOPLE IT had been snowing hard for twenty-four hours at Dead Man’s Gulch. Beginning with a few feathery particles, they had steadily increased in number until the biting air was filled with billions of snowflakes, which whirled and eddied in the gale that howled through the gorges and cañons of the Sierras. It was still snowing with no sign of cessation, and the blizzard blanketed... more...

CHAPTER XVIII. JANET IN A NEW CHARACTER. On entering Lady Chillington's room for the second time, Janet found that the mistress of Deepley Walls had completed her toilette in the interim, and was now sitting robed in stiff rustling silk, with an Indian fan in one hand and a curiously-chased vinaigrette in the other. She motioned with her fan to Janet. "Be seated," she said, in the iciest... more...

Hansen was sitting at the control board in the single building on Communications Relay Station 43.4SC, when the emergency light flashed on for the first time in two hundred years. With textbook-recommended swiftness, he located the position of the ship sending the call, identified the ship and the name of its captain, and made contact. “This is Hansen on 43.4SC. Put me through to Captain Fromer.”... more...

CHAPTER I. STATE OF WOMEN AMONG THE ARABS OF THE JAHILIYEH, OR THE "TIMES OF THE IGNORANCE." In that eloquent Sura of the Koran, called Ettekwir, (lxxxi.) it is said, "When the girl buried alive shall be asked for what sin she was slain." The passage no doubt refers to the cruel practice which still in Mohammed's time lingered among the tribe of Temîm, and which was afterwards... more...

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON When a popular writer dies, the question it has become the fashion with a nervous generation to ask is the question, ‘Will he live?’  There was no idler question, none more hopelessly impossible and unprofitable to answer.  It is one of the many vanities of criticism to promise immortality to the authors that it praises, to patronise a writer with the assurance that our... more...

VALUE OF SOUP 1. SOUP is a liquid food that is prepared by boiling meat or vegetables, or both, in water and then seasoning and sometimes thickening the liquid that is produced. It is usually served as the first course of a dinner, but it is often included in a light meal, such as luncheon. While some persons regard the making of soup as difficult, nothing is easier when one knows just what is required... more...

LETTERS FROM FRANCE. 11th Suffolks, B.E.F., Monday, January 10th, 1916. My darling Mother,— This will probably be a long letter; I hope you will not get bored with it. Please keep this letter and any that follow it, so that at the end of the war I may perhaps achieve fame as the author of "Drivellings of a young Officer at the Front." As I have not got used to the routine out here I will... more...