CHAPTER I There were very few people upon Platform Number Twenty-one of Liverpool Street Station at a quarter to nine on the evening of April 2—possibly because the platform in question is one of the most remote and least used in the great terminus. The station-master, however, was there himself, with an inspector in attendance. A dark, thick-set man, wearing a long travelling ulster and a Homburg... more...

CHAPTER I FATHER AND DAUGHTER On a hill, reared back from a northern lake, stood a weather-beaten farmhouse, creaking in a heavy winter blizzard. It was an old-fashioned, many-pillared structure. The earmarks of hard winters and the fierce suns of summer were upon it. From the main road it was scarcely discernible, settled, as it was, behind a row of pine trees, which in the night wind beat and tossed... more...

He lit a cigarette, the last one they had, and asked his wife "Want to share it?" "No. That's all right." Diane sat at the viewport of the battered old Gormann '87, a small figure of a woman hunched over and watching the parade of asteroids like tiny slow-moving incandescent flashes. Ralph looked at her and said nothing. He remembered what it was like when she had worked by... more...

NOTES THE AUTHOR OF THE "CHARACTERISTICS." Lord Shaftesbury's Letters to a young Man at the University, on which Mr. SINGER has addressed to you an interesting communication (Vol. ii., p. 33.), were reprinted in 1746 in a collection of his letters, "Letters of the Earl of Shaftesbury, author of the Characteristicks, collected into one volume: printed MDCCXLVI." 18mo. This volume... more...

DOMESTIC ANTIQUITIES. The first of these archæological rarities is a pair of Snuffers, found in Dorsetshire sixty-four years since, and engraved in Hutchins's history of that county. They were discovered, says the historian, "in the year 1768, in digging the foundation of a granary, at the foot of a hill adjoining to Corton mansion house (formerly the seat of the respectable family of the... more...

CHAPTER I. The Trial. Mr. Kent was a very able magistrate. He had sat on the bench for many years and was considered a man of great legal attainments and skill. He very seldom erred in his judgment, and being gifted with a natural shrewdness, he saw the difference at once between a guilty and an innocent man. He rarely erred; long practice had made him an adept in reading faces. But on this morning,... more...

CHAPTER I She was small and slight, with timid, brown eyes and soft, fair hair and a certain daintiness of person that singled her out for attention in spite of the shabbiness of her clothes. The first morning she put in an appearance at the factory the other girls marked her down as being a little different from themselves; a little less rough and capable of looking after her own interests, a little... more...

THE WISH “ Mail in?” “Yes, sir; just arrived. What name?” “Charles K. Spencer.” The letter clerk seized a batch of correspondence and sorted it with nimble fingers. The form of the question told him that Spencer was interested in letters stamped for the greater part with bland presentments of bygone Presidents of the United States. In any event, he would have known, by long experience of... more...

Notes and Queries" in Holland. The following extremely interesting, and, we need scarcely add, to us most gratifying, communication reached us at too late a period last week to admit of our then laying it before our friends, readers, and contributors. They will one and all participate in our gratification at the proof which it affords, not merely of that success which they have all combined to... more...

Kane had observed Commander Y'Nor's bird-of-prey profile with detached interest as Y'Nor jerked his head around to glare again at the chronometer on the farther wall of the cruiser's command room. "What's keeping Dalon?" Y'Nor demanded, transferring his glare to Kane. "Did you assure him that I have all day to waste?" "He should be here any minute,... more...