I. THE CHOOSING OF THE MESSENGER There was trouble at Mandakan. You could not have guessed it from anything the eye could see. In front of the Residency two soldiers marched up and down sleepily, mechanically, between two ten-pounders marking the limit of their patrol; and an orderly stood at an open door, lazily shifting his eyes from the sentinels to the black guns, which gave out soft, quivering... more...

OCTOBER. FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. Monday, 17th. To-day is the first day of school. These three months of vacation in the country have passed like a dream. This morning my mother conducted me to the Baretti schoolhouse to have me enter for the third elementary course: I was thinking of the country and went unwillingly. All the streets were swarming with boys: the two book-shops were thronged with fathers... more...

CUPBOARD LOVE In the comfortable living-room at Negget's farm, half parlour and half kitchen, three people sat at tea in the waning light of a November afternoon. Conversation, which had been brisk, had languished somewhat, owing to Mrs. Negget glancing at frequent intervals toward the door, behind which she was convinced the servant was listening, and checking the finest periods and the most... more...

HEARTICULTURE One cannot begin too early, and January is the time for looking over the ground and planning the arrangement of the Heart Garden. Outside of the Hothouse few flowers are to be seen in January. The most noticeable of these is the Common Turnleaf or Resolution Plant, a sort of Neverlasting Flower. The Turnleaf abounds during the early days of January, but disappears as the month progresses.... more...

CHAPTER I "Jim, it's years since you asked me to help you out in a love affair," I said. "Has your old heart grown cold, shriveled up, or what's the matter?" "You're right, Ben; it must be a long time back. But why don't you put out a few letters for yourself?" "I wish I could get a dollar a ton for all I have written for you," said I; "then... more...

Chapter One If Dad had been a coal baron, like Mr. Tudor Carstairs, or a stock-watering captain of industry, like Mrs. Sanderson-Spear's husband, or descended from a long line of whisky distillers, like Mrs. Carmichael Porter, why, then his little Elizabeth would have been allowed the to sit in seat of the scornful with the rest of the Four Hundred, and this story would never have been written.... more...

THE FOUR-LEAF CLOVER. ELLA HIGGINSON.I know a place where the sun is like gold,    And the cherry blooms burst with snow,And down underneath is the loveliest nook,    Where the four-leaf clovers grow. One leaf is for hope, and one is faith,    And one is for love, you know;And God put another one in for luck--    If you search you will find where they grow. But you must have hope and you... more...

ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. DISRAELI. BY HIS SON. The traditionary notion that the life of a man of letters is necessarily deficient in incident, appears to have originated in a misconception of the essential nature of human action. The life of every man is full of incidents, but the incidents are insignificant, because they do not affect his species; and in general the importance of every... more...

CHARLES THE FIRST. Of his romantic excursion into Spain for the Infanta, many curious particulars are scattered amongst foreign writers, which display the superstitious prejudices which prevailed on this occasion, and, perhaps, develope the mysterious politics of the courts of Spain and Rome. Cardinal Gaetano, who had long been nuncio in Spain, observes, that the people, accustomed to revere the... more...

LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS. Nothing is more idle, and, what is less to be forgiven in a writer, more tedious, than minute and lengthened descriptions of localities; where it is very doubtful whether the writers themselves had formed any tolerable notion of the place they describe,—it is certain their readers never can! These descriptive passages, in which writers of imagination so frequently indulge, are... more...