“IT can’t be done! So I may as well give it I up and get a new pair. I long for them, but I’m afraid my nice little plan for Laura will be spoilt,” said Jessie Delano to herself, as she shook her head over a pair of small, dilapidated slippers almost past mending. While […]

Being Boston girls, of course they got up a club for mental improvement, and, as they were all descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, they called it the Mayflower Club. A very good name, and the six young girls who were members of it made a very pretty posy when they met together, once a week, […]

Chapter I THE PROPHECY Trevlyn lands and Trevlyn gold, Heir nor heiress e’er shall hold, Undisturbed, till, spite of rust, Truth is found in Trevlyn dust. “This is the third time I’ve found you poring over that old rhyme. What is the charm, Richard? Not its poetry I fancy.” And the young wife laid a […]

Chapter I To and fro, like a wild creature in its cage, paced that handsome woman, with bent head, locked hands, and restless steps. Some mental storm, swift and sudden as a tempest of the tropics, had swept over her and left its marks behind. As if in anger at the beauty now proved powerless, […]

This is not a tale, but a true history.–ED. FROM “HOSPITAL SKETCHES.” HARDLY was I settled again, when the inevitable bowl appeared, and its bearer delivered a message I had expected, yet dreaded to receive:– “John is going, ma’am, and wants to see you, if you can come.” “The moment this boy is asleep; tell […]

UP the dark stairs that led to his poor home strode a gloomy-faced young man with despair in his heart and these words on his lips:– “I will struggle and suffer no longer; my last hope has failed, and life, become a burden, I will rid myself of at once.” As he muttered his stern […]

A STORY FOR YOUNG AMERICA. FIVE and twenty ladies, all in a row, sat on one side of the hall, looking very much as if they felt like the little old woman who fell asleep on the king’s highway and awoke with abbreviated drapery, for they were all arrayed in gray tunics and Turkish continuations, […]

Hurrying to catch a certain car at a certain corner late one stormy night, I was suddenly arrested by the sight of a queer-looking bundle lying in a door-way. ‘Bless my heart, it’s a child! O John! I’m afraid he’s frozen!’ I exclaimed to my brother, as we both bent over the bundle. Such a […]

‘I perfectly hate it! and something dreadful ought to be done to the woman who invented it,’ said Patty, in a pet, sending a shower of gay pieces flying over the carpet as if a small whirlwind and a rainbow had got into a quarrel. Puss did not agree with Patty, for, after a surprised […]

Being alone in London, yet wishing to celebrate the day, I decided to pay my respects to the lions at the Zoological Gardens. A lovely place it was, and I enjoyed myself immensely; for May-day in England is just what it should be, mild, sunny, flowery, and spring-like. As I walked along the well-kept paths, […]

As I sit working at my back window, I look out on a long row of other people’s back windows; and it is quite impossible for me to help seeing and being interested in my neighbours. There are a good many children in those houses; and though I don’t know one of their names, I […]

‘Here comes our pretty little girl,’ I said to Kate, as we sat resting on the seat beside the footpath that leads from Dinan on the hill to Lehon in the valley. Yes, there she was, trotting toward us in her round cap, blue woollen gown, white apron, and wooden shoes. On her head was […]

I have often wondered what the various statues standing about the city think of all day, and what criticisms they would make upon us and our doings, if they could speak. I frequently stop and stare at them, wondering if they don’t feel lonely; if they wouldn’t be glad of a nod as we go […]

‘I’m so glad to-morrow is Christmas, because I’m going to have lots of presents.’ ‘So am I glad, though I don’t expect any presents but a pair of mittens.’ ‘And so am I; but I shan’t have any presents at all.’ As the three little girls trudged home from school they said these things, and […]

No one would have thought of calling him so, this ragged, barefooted, freckle-faced Jack, who spent his days carrying market-baskets for the butcher, or clean clothes for Mrs. Quinn, selling chips, or grubbing in the ash-heaps for cinders. But he was honestly earning his living, doing his duty as well as he knew how, and […]

‘”You can’t do this” and “you mustn’t do that,” from morning to night. Try it yourself and see how you’d like it,’ muttered Harry, as he flung down his hat in sulky obedience to his father’s command to give up a swim in the river and keep himself cool with a book that warm summer […]

There never was a prouder mamma than Madam Cluck when she led forth her family of eight downy little chicks. Chanticleer, Strut, Snowball, Speckle, Peep, Peck, Downy, and Blot were their names; and no sooner were they out of the shell than they began to chirp and scratch as gaily as if the big world […]

Down by the sea lived Ben the fisherman, with his wife, and little son, who was called Dandelion, because he wore yellow pinafores, and had curly, yellow hair, that covered his head with a golden fuzz. A very happy family, for Ben was kind and industrious, Hetty, his wife, a cheerful, busy creature, and Dandelion […]

I. Little Tessa sat alone by the fire, waiting for her father to come home from work. The children were fast asleep, all four in the big bed behind the curtain; the wind blew hard outside, and the snow beat on the window-panes; the room was large, and the fire so small and feeble that […]

I live high up in a city house all alone. My room is a cosy little place, though there is nothing very splendid in it,–only my pictures and books, my flowers and my little friend. When I began to live there, I was very busy and therefore very happy; but by-and-by, when my hurry was […]