CHAPTER I. THE DUBOIS HOUSE. "Well, verily, I didn't expect to find anything like this, in such a wild region", said Mr. Norton, as he settled himself comfortably in a curiously carved, old-fashioned arm-chair, before the fire that blazed cheerily on the broad hearth of the Dubois House. "'Tis not a Yankee family either", added he, mentally. "Everything agreeable and tidy,... more...

IMPERFECT RESPECTABILITIES.   Everybody must have had some trouble in his time with imperfect respectabilities. Nice, well-dressed, well-housed, civil, agreeable people are they. No fault to find with them but that there is some little flaw in their history, for which the very good (rigid) don't visit them. The degree to which one is incommoded with imperfect respectabilities, depends of course a... more...

TROTTY VECK AND HIS DAUGHTER MEG."TROTTY" seems a strange name for an old man, but it was given to Toby Veck because of his always going at a trot to do his errands; for he was a ticket porter or messenger and his office was to take letters and messages for people who were in too great a hurry to send them by post, which in those days was neither so cheap nor so quick as it is now. He did not... more...

CHAPTER I "I always thought that you, Pegler, were such a very sensible woman." The words were said in a good-natured, though slightly vexed tone; and a curious kind of smile flitted over the rather grim face of the person to whom they were addressed. "I've never troubled you before in this exact way, have I, ma'am?" "No, Pegler. That you certainly have not." Miss... more...

When Gerrit woke that morning, his head felt misty and tired, as though weighed down by a mountain landscape, by a whole stack of mist-mountains that bore heavily upon his brain. His eyes remained closed; and, though he was waking, his nightmare still seemed to cast an after-shadow: a nightmare that he was being crushed by great rocky avalanches, which he felt pressing deep down inside his head, though... more...

It was still early in the day when Walter left the cottage a second time. His heart was cheerful, and his movements light and rapid. Instead, however, of taking the road leading to the inn, he struck off in a zigzag path through the valley toward the Engelhorn, whose jagged and lofty peaks rose far up into the blue sky. After a short time he reached the large and splendid glacier that lies between the... more...

Chapter I. 'Nothing fills a child's mind like a large old mansion; better if un- or partially occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the county and Justices of the Quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitude of one, with my feelings at seven years old!'—From Letters of Charles Lamb. To attempt a formal biography of Derrick Vaughan would be out of the... more...

BACH hristoph, I wish you would let me have that book of manuscript music which you have in your cupboard—the one which contains pieces by Pachelbel, and Frohberger, and Buxtehude, and ever so many others—you know which I mean. I will take such care of it if you will only lend it to me for a little while.' Christoph was about to leave the room, but he turned sharply to his little brother as... more...

CHAPTER I.INTRODUCING MR. HOPKINS TOPPLETON.Mr. Hopkins Toppleton, Barrister of London and New York, was considered by his intimates a most fortunate young man. He was accounted the happy possessor of an income of something over fifty thousand dollars a year, derived from investments which time had shown to be as far removed from instability, and as little influenced by the fluctuations of the stock... more...

YOUNG GRANDOLPH'S BARTY. (Afrikander Version of the great Breitmann Ballad, penned, "more in sorrow than in anger," by a "Deutscher" resident in the distant regions where the Correspondent of the "Daily Graphic" is, like der Herr Breitmann himself, "drafellin' apout like eferydings.") Young GRANDOLPH hat a Barty— Vhere is dat Barty now? He fell'd in luf... more...