CHAPTER I. A NEW VENTURE IN SANDY BEACH. "It isn't to be a barn; that's one thing certain. Who ever saw a barn with skylights on it?" Peggy Prescott, in a pretty, fluffy morning dress of pale green, which set off her blonde beauty to perfection, laid down her racket, and, leaving the tennis-court, joined her brother Roy at the picket fence. The lad, bronzed and toughened by his trip... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE SNOW "Now then, let's see who can put a shot through that round hole in the tree-trunk up there. Take a try, Sid." "Must be twenty yards away from here, if a foot, eh, Bristles?" "More like twenty-five to me, Colon; and looks farther than from first base to third, on the diamond." "Line up, everybody, and we'll soon find out who takes the cake at... more...

I It began somewhere in the middle of the world, between London which is the beginning and New York which is the end, where all things are east of the one and west of the other. To be precise, a forlorn landing on the west bank of the muddy turbulent Irrawaddy, remembered by man only so often as it was necessary for the flotilla boat to call for paddy, a visiting commissioner anxious to get away, or a... more...

CHAPTER I 'Let us be quite clear, Aunt Pattie—when does this young woman arrive?' 'In about half an hour. But really, Edward, you need take no trouble! she is coming to visit me, and I will see that she doesn't get in your way. Neither you nor Eleanor need trouble your heads about her.' Miss Manisty—a small elderly lady in a cap—looked at her nephew with a mild and... more...

CHAPTER XX CONSULAR LIFE IN CRETE Cholera was raging all over the Levant, and there was no direct communication with any Turkish port without passing through quarantine. In the uncertainty as to getting to my new post by any route, I decided to leave my wife and boy at Rome, with a newcomer,—our Lisa, then two or three months old,—and go on an exploring excursion. Providing myself with a... more...

CHAPTER I The Last Night of Carnival It was Carnival time in the ancient and once imperial, but now provincial and remote, city of Ravenna. It was Carnival time, and the very acme and high-tide of that season of mirth and revel. For the theory of Carnival observance is, that the life of it, unlike that of most other things and beings, is intensified with a constantly crescendo movement up to the last... more...

LIFE OF SAXO. Of Saxo little is known but what he himself indicates, though much doubtful supposition has gathered round his name. That he was born a Dane his whole language implies; it is full of a glow of aggressive patriotism. He also often praises the Zealanders at the expense of other Danes, and Zealand as the centre of Denmark; but that is the whole contemporary evidence for the statement that he... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BARONY OF DESMOND.  I wonder whether the novel-reading world—that part of it, at least, which may honour my pages—will be offended if I lay the plot of this story in Ireland! That there is a strong feeling against things Irish it is impossible to deny. Irish servants need not apply; Irish acquaintances are treated with limited confidence; Irish cousins are regarded as being... more...

ON GRAMMAR, AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE. As long as gentlemen feel a deficiency in their own education, when they have not a competent knowledge of the learned languages, so long must a parent be anxious, that his son should not be exposed to the mortification of appearing inferiour to others of his own rank. It is in vain to urge, that language is only the key to science; that the names of things are not... more...

CHAPTER I When Esther rang the bell of Numéro 86 Route de Grasse, she felt within her that pleasant sort of stage-fright—a mixture of dread and exhilaration—which one is apt to experience when venturing into the unknown. The thrill might be out of all proportion to the prosaic character of her mission—for what is there exciting in applying for a post as a doctor's assistant?—yet there was... more...