Children's Literature
It was the year of grace 1779. In one of the most beautiful corners of beautiful France stood a grand old château. It was a fine old building, with countless windows large and small, with high-pitched roofs and pointed towers, which in good taste or bad, did its best to be eve...
It was the year of grace 1792, thirteen years after the events related in the last chapter. It was the 2nd of September, and Sunday, a day of rest and peace in all Christian cou...
7. Chapter 7"The night was now pitmirk; the wind soughed amid the headstones and railings of the gentry (for we all must die), and the black corbies in the steeple-holes cackled and crawed...
8. Chapter 8"Oh, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live."
6. Chapter 6"We beheld this from the opposite windows--and, seen thus from a little distance, how many of our own and of other people's sorrows might not seem equally trivial, and equally d...
1. Chapter 1It was the year of grace 1779. In one of the most beautiful corners of beautiful France stood a grand old château. It was a fine old building, with countless windows large and s...
13. Chapter 13Fred could not get me an owl. Lettice _did_ want to show off with Cocky. I had my own way, but she looked sulky and spiteful. I got Tom Smith's magpie; but I had to have him, to...
4. Chapter 4This story begins on a fine autumn afternoon when, at the end of a field over which the shadows of a few wayside trees were stalking like long thin giants, a man and a boy sat s...
9. Chapter 9I must say that Joseph _was_ rather a stupid boy. He was only a year younger than me, but I never could make him understand exactly what I wanted him to do when we played togeth...
5. Chapter 5The night-school was drawing to a close. The attendance had been good, and the room looked cheerful. In one corner the Rector was teaching a group of grown-up men, who (better l...
10. Chapter 10Next day, when our drill in the long corridor was over, Lady Elizabeth told Joseph to bring his fortress, guns, and soldiers into the library, and to play at the Thirty Years' W...
11. Chapter 11I am the eldest, as I remind my brothers; and of the more worthy gender, which my sisters sometimes forget. Though we live in the village, my father is a gentleman, as I shall b...
12. Chapter 12I used to tease the other girls for fun, but I teased Lettice on principle--to knock the nonsense out of her. She was only eight, and very small, but, from the top row of her ti...
3. Chapter 3We are again in the beautiful country of beautiful France. It is the château once more. It is the same, but changed. The unapproachable elegance, the inviolable security, have w...