Come! another log upon the hearth. True, our little parlor is comfortable, especially here, where the old man sits in his old arm-chair; but on Thanksgiving night the blaze should dance high up the chimney, and send a shower of sparks into the outer darkness. Toss on an armful of those dry oak chips, the last relics of the Mermaid's knee-timbers, the bones of your namesake, Susan. Higher yet, and... more...

CHAPTER ITHE TWO OATHSOn an afternoon in the early summer of 1856 Captain Nathaniel Plum, master and owner of the sloop Typhoon was engaged in nothing more important than the smoking of an enormous pipe. Clouds of strongly odored smoke, tinted with the lights of the setting sun, had risen above his head in unremitting volumes for the last half hour. There was infinite contentment in his face,... more...

PART I. THE GREAT FIRE-MOUNTAIN. Long, long ago, when the earth was very young, two hunters were traveling through the forest. They had been on the track of a deer for many days, and they were now far away from the village where they lived. The sun went down and night came on. It was dark and gloomy, but over in the western sky there came a bright light. "It is the moon," said one.... more...

The New Instructor 1 Tex Yancey, called “The Flying Fool” by his comrades in the –th Pursuit Squadron of the American Expeditionary Force, entered the mess hall with lips pressed into a thin, mirthless grin that seemed entirely inappropriate in one who was thirty minutes late to mess and must therefore make out with what was left. The other members of the squadron had finished their meal and were... more...

CHAPTER I HAROLD QUARITCH MEDITATES There are things and there are faces which, when felt or seen for the first time, stamp themselves upon the mind like a sun image on a sensitized plate and there remain unalterably fixed. To take the instance of a face—we may never see it again, or it may become the companion of our life, but there the picture is just as we /first/ knew it, the same smile or frown,... more...

For the last two or three years the King of Spain had been in very weak health, and in danger of his life several times. He had no children, and no hope of having any. The question, therefore, of the succession to his vast empire began now to agitate every European Court. The King of England (William III.), who since his usurpation had much augmented his credit by the grand alliance he had formed... more...

THE WOMAN FROM THE SOUTH Aliksai! In Tusayan the people were living! It was the year after the year when the great star with the belt of fire reached across the sky. (1528.) The desert land of the Hopi people stretched yellow and brown and dead from mesa to mesa. The sage was the color of the dust, and the brazen sky was as a shield made hard and dry by the will of the angry gods. The Spirit People of... more...

INTRODUCTION. 1. It was on Mr. Somers Clarke’s proposition that El Kab was selected for last winter’s work of the Research Account. Mr. Clarke has for some years been interested in this site, and has published some of the XVIIIth dynasty tombs there. He wished to see the smaller tombs excavated, and the great area inside the town examined, so, with his colleague, Mr. J. J. Tylor, he offered a... more...

OUT FOR A HOLIDAY. (By our Impartial and Not-to-be-biassed Critic.) I had often been told that St. Margaret's Bay, between Deal and Dover, was lovely beyond compare. Seen from the Channel, I had heard it described as "magnificent," and evidence of its charms nearer at hand, was adduced in the fact that Mr. ALMA TADEMA, R.A., had made it his headquarters during a portion of the recent... more...

THE CHILDREN AT GRANDMOTHER'S. HERE was once a grandmother who had fourteen little grandchildren. Some of them were cousins to one another; and some were brothers and sisters. This grandmother lived in an old, old cottage not far from the sea-beach. The cottage had a long sloping roof; and there was an elm-tree in front of it.One fair day in June, the boys went down to the sea-beach to bathe, and... more...