CHAPTER IX A pair of well-matched bays in silver-plated harness, and driven by a coachman in livery, turn an easy curve round a corner of the narrow country road, forcing you to step on the sward by the crimson-leaved bramble bushes, and sprinkling the dust over the previously glossy surface of the newly fallen horse chestnuts. Two ladies, elegantly dressed, lounge in the carriage with that graceful... more...

ay day! I scrawled my Larry Maloney across the back of the check and handed it to Nick, the bartender. "Leave me something to operate on," I told him. Nick turned it over. "Still with the News?" The question was rhetorical. I let it pass without swinging at it. I was mentally estimating the total of the pile of tabs Nick pulled out of the cash register, like a fighter on percentage... more...

CHAPTER I HOLBEIN'S PERIOD, PARENTAGE, ANDEARLY WORKHistorical epoch and antecedents—Special conditions and character of early Christian art—Ideals and influence of the monk—Holbein's relation to mediæval schools—His father, uncle, and Augsburg home—Probable dates for his birth and his father's death—Troubles and dispersion of the Augsburg household—From Augsburg to... more...

PREFATORY NOTE A survey of London, a record of the greatest of all cities, that should preserve her history, her historical and literary associations, her mighty buildings, past and present, a book that should comprise all that Londoners love, all that they ought to know of their heritage from the past—this was the work on which Sir Walter Besant was engaged when he died. As he himself said of it:... more...

INTRODUCTION. When we make an object with our hands, we frequently notice that the most care is needed as we near its completion. A false stroke of the brush will change an angel into a demon, a misguided blow of the mallet will shiver the statue into fragments: so, in the work which attempts to form a noble womanhood, all the efforts of years of training will be marred or rendered ineffectual, if the... more...

The red-headed secretary asked, "Names, please?" "Ted Baker." "Bill Stephens." "To see H. Joshua Blair. We have an appointment." "It's for three-thirty. We called up two weeks ago." The secretary said, "Oh, yes. I have you on the list." She checked them off, studied them vaguely, asked, "What was it you wanted to see Mr. Blair about?" Ted... more...

The minds of young people are now manufactured like webs of linen, all alike, and nothing left to nature. From the hour when children can speak, till they come to years of discretion or of indiscretion, they are carefully prompted what to say, and what to think, and what to look, and how to feel; while in most school-rooms nature has been turned out of doors with obloquy, and art has entirely... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HEROINE PRESENTS HERSELF. My name is Milly Van Doren, and I am an only child. I won't begin by telling you how tall I am, how much I weigh, and the color of my eyes and hair, for you would not know very much more about my looks after such an inventory than you do without it, and mother says that in her opinion it is pleasantest to form one's own idea of a girl in a story book.... more...

I. A cabin. A cabin in the woods. In the cabin a great fireplace piled high with logs, fiercely ablaze. On either side of the broad hearthstone a hound sat on his haunches, looking gravely, as only a hound in a meditative mood can, into the glowing fire. In the center of the cabin, whose every nook and corner was bright with the ruddy firelight, stood a wooden table, strongly built and solid. At the... more...

CHAPTER I. MOTHER AND SONS. AMMA, there's such a fine poem here about "seven lovely Campbells" whose father's name was Archibald; it must mean us,—don't you think so?' And a very pretty boy about ten years of age, who had been poring for some time over Wordsworth's Poems, lifted his roguish face to his mother's with a look of pretended conviction.'Not... more...