The Courtship of Allaphair Preaching at the open-air meeting-house was just over and the citizens of Happy Valley were pouring out of the benched enclosure within living walls of rhododendron. Men, women, children, babes in arms mounted horse or mule or strolled in family groups homeward up or down the dusty road. Youths and maids paired off, dallying behind. Emerged last one rich, dark, buxom girl... more...

BROKEN “The expected has happened, I see,” said Macloud, laying aside the paper he had been reading, and raising his hand for a servant. “I thought it was the unexpected that happens,” Hungerford drawled, languidly. “What do you mean?” “Royster & Axtell have been thrown into bankruptcy. Liabilities of twenty million, assets problematical.” “You don’t say!” ejaculated... more...

I "IN THE BEGINNING—GOD" Religion is the relation between man and his Maker—the most important relationship into which man enters. Most of the relationships of life are voluntary; we enter into them or not as we please. Such, for illustration, are those between business partners, between stockholders in a corporation, between friends and between husband and wife. Some relationships, on the... more...

Chapter One "For hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow in his steps." It was Friday morning and the Rev. Henry Maxwell was trying to finish his Sunday morning sermon. He had been interrupted several times and was growing nervous as the morning wore away, and the sermon grew very slowly toward a satisfactory finish.... more...

THE BRISTOL BOWL MY cousin Sarah and me had only one aunt between us, and that was my Aunt Maria, who lived in the little cottage up by the church. Now my aunt had a tidy little bit of money laid by, which she couldn't in reason expect to carry with her when her time came to go, wherever it was she might go to, and a houseful of furniture, old-fashioned, but strong and good still. So of course... more...

Two Young Courtiers. “Ha—ha—ha—ha!” A regular ringing, hearty, merry laugh—just such an outburst of mirth as a strong, healthy boy of sixteen, in the full, bright, happy time of youth, and without a trouble on his mind, can give vent to when he sees something that thoroughly tickles his fancy. Just at the same time the heavy London clouds which had been hanging all the morning over the Park... more...

CHAPTER I (1895) While we stood in the Puebla station, waiting for the train to be made ready, we noticed a priest, who was buying his ticket at the office. On boarding the train, we saw nothing of him, as he had entered another car. Soon after we started, Herman made his usual trip of inspection through the train, and on his return told me that a learned priest was in the second-class coach, and that... more...

CHAPTER I.NEWGATE WITHOUT. Newgate was the first prison to which Charles Dickens gave any literary attention. An account of a visit to it appears among the early “Sketches by Boz.” It is also the only one of the London jails of which he has left us graphic descriptions, or briefer, spirited sketches, which preserves to-day so much of its original character as to be identifiable in detail by the... more...

FLORE (1643) It was about a month after my marriage—and third clerk to the most noble the Bishop of Beauvais, and even admitted on occasions to write in his presence and prepare his minutes, who should marry if I might not?—it was about a month after my marriage, I say, that the thunderbolt, to which I have referred, fell and shattered my fortunes. I rose one morning—they were firing guns for the... more...

INTRODUCTION The entire Hungarian nation—king and people—have recently been celebrating the jubilee of Hungary's greatest writer, Maurice Jokai, whose pen, during half a century of literary activity, has given no less than 250 volumes to the world. Admired and beloved by his patriotic fellow-countrymen, Jokai has displayed that kind of genius which fascinates the learned and unlearned... more...