Soldiers of the Queen

"So at last he ran away, frightening the little birds in the hedge as he flew over the palings. 'They are afraid of me, because I am so ugly,' he said. So he closed his eyes, an...

At the commencement of the winter term, in addition to being in the same class and dormitory, the two cousins were thrown still more together by occupying adjoining desks in the...

"It is jolly to be here at Brenlands again," said Jack, as he sat dangling his legs from the kitchen table, and munching one of the sweet pods of the peas which his aunt was she...

On the twenty-eighth of December, orders had been issued for a portion of the force to march across the desert and occupy the wells at Gakdul; and on this, the morning of the th...

"The tom-cat, whom his mistress called 'My little son,' was a great favourite; he could raise his back, and purr, and could even throw out sparks from his fur if it were stroked...

"The fellows in the Fifth used to run a manuscript magazine. Aston was the first editor, and he called it the 'Portfolio,' because it was bound up in the case of an old blotter...

"They had not been out of the egg long, and were very saucy. 'Listen, friend,' said one of them to the duckling, 'you are so ugly that we like you very well.'"--_The Ugly Duckli...

School was a great change after Brenlands. The rooms seemed barer, the desks more inky, and the bread and butter a good eighth of an inch thicker than they had been at the close...

It was a broiling afternoon. The summer term had once more come round, and Jack, with his coat off, was sitting in a shady corner of the schoolroom wrestling with a letter to Qu...

During the short period which elapsed between Queen Mab's visit and the end of the term Jack managed to steer clear of misfortune; but on the last evening he must needs break ou...

Water! It was a moving sight--a crowd of men standing round a pit, at the bottom of which appeared a little puddle, which when emptied out would gradually drain in again, the sp...

A brilliant, clear sky overhead, and such a scorching sun that the air danced with the heat, as though from the blast of a furnace; surely this could not be the twenty-fifth of...

"It touched the tin soldier so much to see her that he almost wept tin tears, but he kept them back. He looked at her, and they both remained silent."--_The Brave Tin Soldier_.

Numbed with the cold, and stiff from lying so long in a cramped position, Jack and many of his comrades rose as the daylight strengthened, to stretch their legs and stamp some f...

The summers came and went, but Jack Fenleigh remained a rebel, refusing to join the annual gathering at Brenlands, and to pay his homage at the court of Queen Mab.

The battle was nearly over. Gallant tin soldiers of the line lay where they had fallen; nearly the whole of a shilling box of light cavalry had paid the penalty of rashly exposi...

The old house at Brenlands still remains unaltered, except that the empty room upstairs, once the scene of so many terrible conflicts between miniature metal armies, has been tu...

The reply seemed to satisfy Walker; but there was one person in the room to whom Jack knew he would have to make a full confession. While dressing he avoided Valentine's questio...

"If he had called out, 'Here I am,' it would have been all right; but he was too proud to cry out for help while he wore a uniform."--_The Brave Tin Soldier_.

"'I think he will grow up pretty, and perhaps be smaller; he has remained too long in the egg, and therefore his figure is not properly formed;' and then she stroked his neck an...

The holidays passed too quickly, as they always did at Brenlands. Jack was no longer the ugly duckling. Whatever misunderstanding or lack of sympathy might have existed hitherto...

"Then he could see that the bright colours were faded from his uniform; but whether they had been washed off during his journey, or from the effects of his sorrow, no one could...