Soap-bubble stories

It was a village of fountains. They poured from the sides of houses, bubbled up at street corners, sprang from stone troughs by the roadside, and one even gushed from the very w...

The bells rang out; while the Troll, hidden in the branches of a tree close to the entrance door, glanced first at the procession and then at a wedge of wood sticking out of the...

The next day at sunrise, the Bride's mother crept off secretly to the Church Fountain and brought back a large pailful of the water. This she emptied into a wash-tub and covered...

The house stands on a hill on the outskirts of Siena, not far from the high red walls that still enclose the town, as entirely as they did in the times long passed by, when Sien...

"Well, thank Heaven! those children are safe for the present," said Maddalena, as she sat on a stone bench in the sun, with the dark clipped cyprus hedge behind her.

They started early in the morning, having put on their holiday clothes and brushed themselves; and as Bianca, who had come over from the Padre's house, insisted on following the...

"Where's the _scaldino_, grandmother?" were Tuttu's first words, when he woke up to find himself lying on a little bed in a long room, with Maddalena and Father Giacomo bending...

All was quiet and deserted, except that a faint sound of music and singing floated on the wind, coming undoubtedly from the comfortable burrow of the Hedgehog family, who lived...

"Oh, mother, I wish we were rich like the Hedgehogs," cried the eldest daughter, Emmie; "Wilhelm and Fritz are so fashionable, and on Berta's birthday they are going to give a g...

"We've got no dinner to-day; are you going after those Hedgehogs?" said the Tinker to his son Otto. "Now you know where they are, it will be an easy thing to get hold of them."

Gypsies it certainly was, as the Councillor soon determined; and he hastily scratched some snow over the door, and retired to the back kitchen with his whole family, in a terrib...

The Court Hedgehog, with an escort of six guards, had meanwhile arrived at the Mole's house, and was being entertained by the Mole-mother and her children, who were all in a sta...

Beyond this, again, were fields of rye and hemp, bounded on one side by the shining waters of the great Seloe Lake, dug by hundreds of slaves in the time of Madame Olsheffsky's...

On one of the clear dry days of an early Russian autumn, when a brilliant glow of colour and sunshine floods the air, and the birch trees turned to golden glories shake their fl...

They fancied he seemed to be in a great hurry, and as they flew towards him, they noticed that he had no hat, and there was a look of terror on his face that froze Elena's heart...

It was some months afterwards. The flood was over, and the people of Viletna had begun to rebuild their log houses, and collect what could be found of their scattered belongings.

Fortunately the winter that year was late in coming, so that the peasants of Viletna were able to build some sort of shelter for themselves before it set in with real severity.

Volodia Ivanovitch's house stood close to the village street, so that as Elena looked from her windows she could see the long stretch of white road--the snow piled up in great w...

A post-sledge was gliding rapidly over the frozen road towards Viletna; and as it neared the village, a thin worn man, with white hair, who was sitting in it alone, leant forwar...

It would be impossible, he said, to prove their claim to Madame Olsheffsky's estate unless the lost box could be recovered, but if that were ever found the papers inside would c...

But the papers were not hurt. The box contained another tin-lined case, in which the parchments had lain securely, and though damaged in appearance, they were as legible as the...

The Heif Goats lived close to the Heifen Glacier, one of the largest in Switzerland. In fact, their Chalet, or the cavern which they christened by that name, overhung the steepe...

It was a bright sunny day, and the Goat-mother sat with her daughters at the door of the cavern. The Goat-father had gone off by himself to get some provisions at a village on t...

Meanwhile, the Goat-father was languishing in a dark shed attached to the Inn on the other side of the Glacier. His bleats had failed to attract any attention. In fact the only...

Far below them they could see the great stretch of the dazzlingly white Glacier, with its rents and fissures shining greenly in the sunshine. On either side rose bare crags topp...

There was no need for the Heif family to row. They were swept along past the ice walls, and in a few minutes reached the Goat-King's landing-place. A small inlet with a flat sho...

In addition to the handbag, they now had the cuckoo clock, and though Heinrich had insisted on carrying it strapped on his back like a knapsack, his mother could see that he bec...

The Goat-mother arrived at home in a pitiable state of cold and exhaustion, but she was much cheered by finding the house in good order, and a warm supper awaiting her, prepared...

The Goat-mother had lit a comfortable fire in the Heif Chalet, and the Goat-father's slippers were warming against the stove; when a sound of approaching voices and footsteps ma...

They were much respected throughout the whole neighbourhood, for they were kind and hospitable to everyone; and as their home was in such an unfrequented part of the country the...

Fru Bjornson was busily employed in her kitchen, stirring up some liquid in a large saucepan. It was cranberry jam for the winter, and on the floor stood a long row of brown jar...

All day the Badger's scholars enjoyed themselves in the forest. They played leap-frog, ran races, bathed in the river, had lunch in a shady hollow, and picked more cranberries t...

Fortunately Knut and Otto were good swimmers, and they were able after some struggling to scramble to the shore; but they found to their great annoyance that they had landed on...

Every one of his pupils had deserted him; for not only had the two little Bears run away, but all their companions had also played truant; and the whole of that part of the fore...

The Fox took the two little Bears on so quickly, that they soon began to feel both cross and tired. To their anxious enquiries as to where they were going, and whether they coul...

Fru Bjornson, seated on a camp-stool by the side of the entrance gate to her house, was looking anxiously around her. Close by stood Ingold, with one eye tightly screwed up, and...

Under the shade of a cedar tree the under-nurse sat working; and "Aunt Lucy"--an old lady with snow-white hair, crowned by a black mushroom hat--was slowly pacing the gravel wal...

The next day was a very wet one; and Aunt Lucy, coming up into the schoolroom in the morning--as she invariably did, even during the holidays--saw a most extraordinary collectio...

One of Bobbie's and Jerry's greatest treats was to have tea at the cottage on the edge of the park, where old Mrs. Funnel presided over a table covered with cakes and home-made...

She had just finished an account of Bobbie's heroic sacrifice of the day before; and as Bobbie himself was following in a hansom cab, with the other uncle, it was quite safe to...