The Siege of the Seven Suitors

I reached the fallen tree that Hezekiah had appointed as our trysting-place a little ahead of time, and indulged in pleasant speculations while I waited. I was looking toward th...

I slept late, and on going down found the table set in the breakfast-room. A pleasant inadvertence marked the choice of eating-places at Hopefield Manor; I was never quite sure...

The stair had narrowed on this flight, and as I sought with futile eagerness to regain the box-lid, I could have sworn that some one passed me. Still half-stooping, I stretched...

Hezekiah on the roof was safe for a time. Miss Octavia's gentle rejection of my Beacon Street anecdote and her intimation that Hezekiah had been an unbilled participant in the c...

She drew from behind a boulder by which we stood a pumpkin of portable size, which I surmised had been carved into the most hideous of jack o' lanterns by the shrewd hand of Hez...

As she found a seat for herself, I made bold to survey her with some particularity. She carried her fine height with beautiful dignity. She was a creature of grace, and it was a...

"It's wonderful," added Miss Octavia promptly, taking the sword, which Pepperton had with difficulty drawn from its battered scabbard, "that even a discerning woman like me coul...

"Pardon me, Mr. Ames, but did my aunt ask you here to examine the chimneys? I did n't quite understand. We have been here only a week; the weather has been warm, and I believe t...

"I am the simplest and least guileful of beings, I assure you. Yet I have done some things here not in the slightest way related to chimney doctoring; and something else I expec...

MY DEAR GOVERNOR:--It was ordered by the franchises of destiny that you become the chief executive of a state in which the telling of tales brightened the hunter's camp-fire and...

So this was the child whose devotion had rendered Wiggins so miserable, and the sister of whom Cecilia Hollister and her aunt had spoken so strangely. I had not suspected it. Sh...

At my own office my assistant pounced upon me wrathfully. He was half wild over the pressure of vexatious business, and had just been engaging in a long-distance conversation wi...

"Now that the little matter of the servants has been adjusted, we must have a care lest the newly-arrived phalanx, which Providence so kindly sent to you to-day, is not stampede...

"Aunt Octavia has done nothing of the kind," she replied with spirit. "Mr. Wiggins has no right to speak of Aunt Octavia save in terms of kindness. If her wits are sharper than...

"I was not in the slightest danger at any time, Miss Hollister," I protested. "By one of those tricks of fate to which you and I are becoming so accustomed, the card had fallen...

The small round table was conventionally set, but this only added to the grimness of the encompassing arsenal. A bowl of crimson roses in the centre of the snowy cloth would ord...

"I didn't tell you I was going abroad, because the situation made explanations difficult. I could hardly tell you that I was about to race over Europe after a waitress I had see...

"Poverty and hunger, my lord, are pardonable sins. And I dare say that Miss Hollister would be highly pleased to know that a gentleman of your high position--she told me herself...

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven;" and at seven her eyes rested upon me with a look that mingled surprise and annoyance. She took a step toward me, and I started to rise...

As I turned to my horse I heard the swift patter of hoofs, and saw a man and woman galloping furiously toward me. They were rapidly nearing the ridge, and their horses were spri...