THE LADY OF THE BARGE The master of the barge Arabella sat in the stern of his craft with his right arm leaning on the tiller. A desultory conversation with the mate of a schooner, who was hanging over the side of his craft a few yards off, had come to a conclusion owing to a difference of opinion on the subject of religion. The skipper had argued so warmly that he almost fancied he must have inherited... more...

NOT IN THE SCENARIO "What in the world are those people up to?" Ruth Fielding's clear voice asked the question of her chum, Helen Cameron, and her chum's twin-brother, Tom. She turned from the barberry bush she had just cleared of fruit and, standing on the high bank by the roadside, gazed across the rolling fields to the Lumano River. "What people?" asked Helen, turning... more...

Chapter I "Magnifique!" ejaculated the Countess de Coude, beneath her breath. "Eh?" questioned the count, turning toward his young wife. "What is it that is magnificent?" and the count bent his eyes in various directions in quest of the object of her admiration. "Oh, nothing at all, my dear," replied the countess, a slight flush momentarily coloring her already pink... more...

CHAPTER I Edward—so we shall call a wealthy nobleman in the prime of life—had been spending several hours of a fine April morning in his nursery-garden, budding the stems of some young trees with cuttings which had been recently sent to him. He had finished what he was about, and having laid his tools together in their box, was complacently surveying his work, when the gardener came up and... more...

CHAPTER I DINNER TIME As The Aloha rode gently to her buoy among the crafts in the harbour, St. George longed to proclaim in the megaphone's monstrous parody upon capital letters: "Cat-boats and house-boats and yawls, look here. You're bound to observe that this is my steam yacht. I own her—do you see? She belongs to me, St. George, who never before owned so much as a piece of... more...

Rimsky-Korsakov had long been engrossed in his treatise on orchestration. We have in our possession a thick note book of some 200 pages in fine hand writing, dating from the years 1873-1874, containing a monograph on the question of acoustics, a classification of wind instruments and a detailed description of the construction and fingering of the different kinds of flute, the oboe, clarinet and... more...

Guard-mounting was over. The commanding officer in the Adjutant's office was occupied with the daily routine business of a frontier post. At tables near him sat the Post-Adjutant, the acting Sergeant-Major, and a soldier clerk, writing and making up the semi-weekly mail for the post-office beyond the neighboring river. Upon a bench outside the door, serving his tour as office orderly, lounged a... more...

CHAPTER I. A SYLLABUB PARTY. Oft had I shadowed such a groupOf beauties that were bornIn teacup times of hood and hoop,And when the patch was worn;And legs and arms with love-knots gay.About me leaped and laughedThe modish Cupid of the day,And shrilled his tinselled shaft.—Tennyson. If times differ, human nature and national character vary but little; and thus, in looking back on former times, we are... more...

AN UPBRAIDING Now I am dead you sing to me   The songs we used to know,But while I lived you had no wish   Or care for doing so. Now I am dead you come to me   In the moonlight, comfortless;Ah, what would I have given alive   To win such tenderness! When you are dead, and stand to me   Not differenced, as now,But like again, will you be cold   As when we lived, or how? "These... more...

CHAPTER I A MIGHTY LITTLE HUNTER It all commenced that bright November day of the Indian rabbit drive and hunt. The motley army of the Piute tribe was sweeping tremendously across a sage-brush valley of Nevada, their force two hundred braves in number. They marched abreast, some thirty yards apart, and formed a line that was more than two miles long. The spectacle presented was wonderful to see. Red,... more...