CHAPTER I. PREPARATIONS AND PLANS. "It will be another 'sky cruise,' longer and daintier and lovelier!" exclaimed Jess Bancroft, clapping her hands. "Peggy, you're nothing if not original." "Well, there are automobile tours and sailing trips, and driving parties—" "And railroad journeys and mountain tramps—" interrupted Jess, laughing. "Yes, and... more...

INTRODUCTION This dramatization of the Continental Congress portrays the spirit of the times during the period of the American Revolution. It deals principally with the debates for and against the Declaration of Independence; it is a summary of the grievances, struggles, sacrifices, and victories of the colonies from the enactment of the obnoxious Stamp Act by the British Parliament to the resignation... more...

ARGUMENT After much struggling and loss in love and in the world of man, the protagonist throws in his lot with a woman who is already married. Together they go into another country, she perforce leaving her children behind. The conflict of love and hate goes on between the man and the woman, and between these two and the world around them, till it reaches some sort of conclusion, they transcend into... more...

ROAD FROM CALAIS. UNNECESSARY PASSPORTS. CHANTILLY. THE following excursion was undertaken for several reasons: the first of which was, that though I had been many times in Paris before, yet I had not once been there since the Revolution, and I was desirous of seeing how far a residence of a few years in France might be practicable and agreeable; secondly, a Counter-Revolution, or, at least, some... more...

CHAPTER 1. THE MASON-BEES. Reaumur (Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), inventor of the Reaumur thermometer and author of "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire naturelle des insectes."—Translator's Note.) devoted one of his papers to the story of the Chalicodoma of the Walls, whom he calls the Mason-bee. I propose to go on with the story, to complete it and especially to... more...

A PAIR OF MILITARY GLOVES. It was in Italy, on my way home from Egypt to be demobilised, that I decided to buy a pair of warm gloves from Ordnance. After being directed by helpful other ranks to the A.S.C. Depot, the Camp Commandant's Office and the Y.M.C.A., I found myself, at the end of a morning's strenuous walking, confronted by notices on a closed door stating that this was the... more...

Sir Henry Sidney, in writing to his court, had always reported John O'Neil as "the only strong man in Ireland." Before his rout at Lough Swilly, he could commonly call into the field 4,000 foot and 1,000 horse; and his two years' revolt cost Elizabeth, in money, about 150,000 pounds sterling "over and above the cess laid on the country"—besides "3,500 of her... more...

The Spectacle here presented in the likeness of a Drama is concerned with the Great Historical Calamity, or Clash of Peoples, artificially brought about some hundred years ago. The choice of such a subject was mainly due to three accidents of locality. It chanced that the writer was familiar with a part of England that lay within hail of the watering-place in which King George the Third had his... more...

Chapter 1: A Rescue. Most of the towns standing on our seacoast have suffered a radical change in the course of the last century. Railways, and the fashion of summer holiday making, have transformed them altogether, and great towns have sprung up where fishing villages once stood. There are a few places, however, which seem to have been passed by, by the crowd. The number yearly becomes smaller, as the... more...

PART ONEMARGERY was sitting under the cherry tree with a certain air of expectancy. She seemed to be waiting for something or some one. Willie Jones's head popped over the back fence and Willie Jones himself, a tin pail in one hand, dropped into the Blair yard and made for the cherry tree. But Margery still gazed earnestly, tensely, into nothing. Willie Jones, evidently, was not the object of her... more...