week ago, then came several nights of frost, and to-day again a fresh
mantle of white was laid down. All roughnesses and inequalities are
smoothed away. The whole land lies in delicate curves, swelling and
subsiding in gradations too fine to follow. With bar and chevron, and a
million devices of this celestial heraldry, trees and palings are
outlined and emblazoned, and in the graveyard opposite the tombstones
are capped with whiteness. From eaves and gutters hang the festooned
icicles, and most people find it cheerless weather. But not so we, for
between us, with the aid of a prodigiously stupid carpenter, we have
designed and executed a toboggan, which is the chariot of love, and on
the steep down-sides (attended by the puzzled collies, who cannot
understand how it is that snowballs, which so closely resemble
tennis-balls, vanish in the retrieving) we spend vivifying afternoons.
The toboggan has a decided bias, and it is only a question of time
before it gets broadside to the slope of the hill, ejecting its
passengers. That is the moment for which the collies (Huz and Buz) are
waiting, and they fly after us and lick our faces before we can regain
our feet, to congratulate us on the success of this excellent new game.
Indeed, the ‘Alliance of Laughter’ is in league again, but below the
laughter is love, which penetrates to the centre of the world and rises
to the heaven of heavens. Then we tramp back, towing the slewing
toboggan uphill, and getting our heels kicked by it downhill to the
muffled town at dusk, and the long evenings begin.
I have told her all about Margery, as was only natural, but it was no
news to her. She had guessed it, with woman’s intuition, to which
lightning is a snail, on the day when I told her how like she was to
Margery. I had said ‘She was my best friend’ in a voice, it appears,
that was the most obvious self-betrayal. I have told her, too, the grim
determination I had made not to see her any more. That, it appears on
the same authority, was harmless though silly, since it was utterly out
of my power to do anything of the kind. I couldn’t have done it: that
was all. I, of course, argued that I could; so she said, ‘Well, do it
now, then. It is not too late.’
But when I told her about Margery, she did not laugh, but she answered:
‘I wanted so to comfort you. And I saw at first that you looked at me
and thought of her. Then, by degrees, I wanted to take her place. And by
degrees you let me have a place of my own. You looked at me and thought
of me. That was one evening we played cards here.’
‘You saw that?’ I asked.
‘How could a girl avoid seeing it, when all the time she----’
‘What?’
‘Nothing--at least, not much.’
‘What, then?’
She came a little closer in the gleam of the firelight.
‘When all the time she longed to see it,’ she whispered.
‘And is that not much? Is there anything in the world bigger than that?’
‘No; it is bigger than the world.’
Oh, I am loved--I am loved!
* * * * *
It is Christmas Eve, and she has just gone home with her father, and
outside in the moonlight the waits are singing. I know that they are not
in tune, and that _qua_ singing it is a deplorable performance, but
there is such a singing in my heart that I do not hear the false notes,
and the thrill of Christmas, too, is upon me. I have never quite got
over (and I hope I never shall) the childish awe and mystery in hearing
the voices from the night, being awakened by the sounds, and being
carried, wrapped up in blankets, to the window, where I could see dim
forms outside black against the snow. I did not know in those earliest
years who they were. It was Christmas, and there were mysterious beings
singing in the night. On no other night were they there, for they were
of the family, I must suppose, of Father Christmas and Santa Claus and
the fairy Abracadabra, to whose awful presence--she appeared to be about
nine feet high--we had been introduced, not without delightful inward
quailings, before we went to bed. She brought with her a vessel of the
shape certainly of a clothes-basket, but as it was of solid gold it
could not have been a clothes-basket. And inside were exactly those
things for which we each of us had pined and audibly hungered. Such a
clever fairy! She never made a mistake or confused my wants with those
of my brothers; so probably she was omniscient as well as beneficent.
And my good fairies have been just as clever ever since. They never make
mistakes, and now they have given me the best gift of all. So, listening
to the singing in the night now, the years slip back, the child within
me stirs and awakens, and out of the rose-coloured mists of early years
that queer little figure, wrapped in blankets and carried to the window,
looks wonderingly at me and smiles because I am happy. Abracadabra, too,
is with me to-night, not nine feet high any longer, nor girt about with
delicious terrors for me, but still my dear fairy, who never fails me.
You should have seen her meeting with Helen; the two who are dearest to
me out of all the world, saw each other and loved each other on the
moment, and Helen ran to her and called her ‘mother.’
The singing in the night is long since silent; midnight has struck, and
the house is very still in this first hour of Christmas Day. All
afternoon, following the custom I have known from childhood, we made
wreaths of evergreens for decoration of the doors, and the holly berries
glow red in the dark green of the ivy. The scraps we burned on the
hearth, and the green leaves are still crackling and popping, and the
room is aromatic with the smell of them--the smell, so it always seemed
to me, of Christmas. Outside the same wonderful windless frost still
binds the earth, and in the dryness of the air the stars are visible
nearly down to the horizon, and the sheets of snow sparkle dimly in the
soft twilight of them. Yet I still linger here, finishing the few words
that remain to be written of this little book of months, which tells of
happenings so tremendous and momentous to me, so infinitesimal to the
world at large. It is a very inconsecutive performance, I know, very
often dealing with interests so minute that, even as I write them, the
time when what one writes assumes its greatest importance to one’s self,
I know I am risking boredom for somebody. But the remedy for such
boredom is so simple: one has only to shut the book.
How well I remember the first day of the year, a morning of fog, with
fugitive gleams of sun, type of the inscrutable young year, which now is
flaming to its close in a glory of rose-coloured sunset! All I ever
desired, all that I scarcely dared to desire, is mine, and yet this is
only the promise of what shall be. The love which is mine is like a
golden thread passing through the scattered beads of my days, threading
them into a necklace which I place round her neck, so that it lies on
her heart, and day and night moves to its beating, and rises and falls
with her breath. O my beloved, whether you sleep or wake, it is there;
it is yours. Do you remember a day or two ago how, quite suddenly, your
eyes filled with tears, and when I asked you what that meant, you said,
‘It is only because it is us, just you and I’? Even so.
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
* * * * *
DONOVAN PASHA
BY SIR GILBERT PARKER
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Daily Chronicle.=--‘In this characteristic and powerful volume of
short stories, Sir Gilbert Parker exemplifies the truth of the old
adage, _Ex Africa semper aliquid novi_, by the remarkable vividness and
force with which he impresses upon us many and strange diversities of
British activity in foreign parts. It is a weird picture of change
moving across the face of the unchangeable that is presented in these
glittering and motley pages. These short stories are powerful, various,
and invigorating. The book is full of life--real, vital, burning
life--and the characters that people it are rich in variety and
suggestion.’
THE RIGHT OF WAY
BY SIR GILBERT PARKER
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Outlook.=--‘_The Right of Way_ is the right stuff--romance the royal.
It is dramatic. It abounds in good things. Its inspiration is heroic. It
is a powerful and moving novel, in which strong and natural situations
abound.’
=The Standard.=--‘The story deals with those strong passions and intense
emotions that do not depend for their interest on the framework and
setting in which they are presented. Nowhere else has the author worked
with a surer touch or more careful craftsmanship. He has painted on
larger canvasses, but not with so much precision of line, so much
restraint, and such just harmony of tint; nor does he elsewhere exhibit
an equal command of unforced pathos and genuine tragedy. The story is
full of dramatic incident, ingeniously contrived.’
=The St. James’s Gazette.=--‘A fine book, stirring, dramatic, fascinating.
THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING
BY SIR GILBERT PARKER
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=--‘Not even in _The Seats of the Mighty_ does Mr. Parker
suggest such an impression of his strength as in the story which gives
its title to the book. Strong and yet natural situations follow in rapid
succession. In Madelinette Mr. Parker has idealized the noblest of
women.’
=Literature.=--‘The short story is very seldom wrought to perfection in
England, but Mr. Gilbert Parker establishes once more his claim to be
one of the very few writers who make that particular literary form a
thing of art. These stories are full of poetry, pathos, and dramatic
force, and show a peculiar power of realising the possibilities of the
short story.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
* * * * *
THE ETERNAL CITY
BY HALL CAINE
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Daily Telegraph.=--‘Mr. Hall Caine has produced a remarkable novel.’
=The St. James’s Gazette.=--‘It is interesting, characteristic, and highly
dramatic, and not too long. It is a stirring, warm-blooded story that
one is sorry to have finished.’
=The Daily News.=--‘Mr. Hall Caine has written a book that will strike the
popular imagination.... He introduces no subtleties into his politics.
Above all, he makes his human interest clear, strong, and intelligible.’
=The Liverpool Daily Post.=--‘Hall Caine’s _Eternal City_ is a great
novel, revealing the author at the very zenith of his gift.... The
book’s greatest wealth is its wealth of contagious and engrossing
emotion. It is a triumph of imagination, of power over the feelings, as
it is of dexterously used observation of an historic and most
interesting and deeply agitated people....’
=The Daily Mail.=--‘He has written a vivid story, characterised by that
keen eye for dramatic situations which has given him fame. There is
little doubt that its popularity will rival that of its predecessors.’
=The Liverpool Courier.=--‘_The Eternal City_, daring in its conception,
and still more audacious in its execution, dealing not with a century
ago or a decade back, but with to-day, referring to positions (if not to
persons) that stand out prominent in the world’s life, the present
moment is the flood which must carry it to success.... Of its intrinsic
worth there can be no doubt. It is the best that Mr. Caine has yet
produced.’
=The Scotsman.=--‘It may be asserted with confidence that no living author
than Mr. Caine could have produced this work. It may be doubted whether
any author who has lived for many generations past could have produced
it. The novel stands out as a purely exceptional work.... The verdict
must be that it is masterly in its conception and in its treatment....
Mr. Caine has produced a really fine work, a work that will carry on his
reputation to a higher point than it has yet attained.’
THE CHRISTIAN
BY HALL CAINE
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Sketch.=--‘It quivers and palpitates with passion, for even Mr.
Caine’s bitterest detractors cannot deny that he is the possessor of
that rarest of all gifts, genius.’
=The Standard.=--‘The book has humour, it has pathos, it is full of colour
and movement. It abounds in passages of terse, bold, animated
descriptions.... There is, above all, the fascination of a skilful
narrative.’
=The Speaker.=--‘It is a notable book, written in the heart’s blood of the
author, and palpitating with the passionate enthusiasm that has inspired
it. A book that is good to read, and that cannot fail to produce an
impression on its readers.’
=The Scotsman.=--‘The tale will enthral the reader by its natural power
and beauty. The spell it casts is instantaneous, but it also gathers
strength from chapter to chapter, until we are swept irresistibly along
by the impetuous current of passion and action.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
* * * * *
THE MANXMAN
BY HALL CAINE
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=--‘With the exception of _The Scapegoat_, this is
unquestionably the finest and most dramatic of Mr. Hall Caine’s
novels.... _The Manxman_ goes very straight to the roots of human
passion and emotion. It is a remarkable book, throbbing with human
interest.’
=The Queen.=--‘_The Manxman_ is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable
books of the century. It will be read and re-read, and take its place in
the literary inheritance of the English-speaking nations.’
=The St. James’s Gazette.=--‘_The Manxman_ is a contribution to
literature, and the most fastidious critic would give in exchange for it
a wilderness of that deciduous trash which our publishers call
fiction.... It is not possible to part from _The Manxman_ with anything
but a warm tribute of approval.’--EDMUND GOSSE.
THE BONDMAN
BY HALL CAINE
With a Photogravure Portrait of the Author.
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=Mr. Gladstone.=--‘_The Bondman_ is a work of which I recognise the
freshness, vigour, and sustained interest, no less than its integrity of
aim.’
=The Times.=--‘It is impossible to deny originality and rude power to this
saga, impossible not to admire its forceful directness, and the colossal
grandeur of its leading characters.’
=The Academy.=--‘The language of _The Bondman_ is full of nervous,
graphic, and poetical English; its interest never flags, and its
situations and descriptions are magnificent. It is a splendid novel.’
=The Speaker.=--‘This is the best book that Mr. Hall Caine has yet
written, and it reaches a level to which fiction very rarely attains....
We are, in fact, so loth to let such good work be degraded by the title
of “novel” that we are almost tempted to consider its claim to rank as a
prose epic.’
THE SCAPEGOAT
BY HALL CAINE
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=--‘In our judgment it excels in dramatic force all the
Author’s previous efforts. For grace and touching pathos Naomi is a
character which any romancist in the world might be proud to have
created, and the tale of her parents’ despair and hopes, and of her own
development, confers upon _The Scapegoat_ a distinction which is
matchless of its kind.’
=The Guardian.=--‘Mr. Hall Caine is undoubtedly master of a style which is
peculiarly his own. He is in a way a Rembrandt among novelists.’
=The Athenæum.=--‘It is a delightful story to read.’
=The Academy.=--‘Israel ben Oliel is the third of a series of the most
profoundly conceived characters in modern fiction.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
* * * * *
SCARLET AND HYSSOP
BY E. F. BENSON
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Standard.=--‘It is astonishingly up-to-date: it brims over with
chatter, with Saturday to Monday parties, with bridge, flirtation,
motor-cars, semi-detached husbands and wives, and the Boer war,--in fact
with everything in which London society of to-day interests itself. An
admirable picture, witty, cynical, and amusing. It is full of brilliant
things.’
=The Pall Mall Gazette.=--‘Scathing in satire and relentless in exposure.
The interest never flags for a moment. There are many pages of witty
dialogue. _Scarlet and Hyssop_ must be accounted a really brilliant
piece of work, unsurpassed by anything Mr. Benson has given us.’
THE LUCK OF THE VAILS
BY E. F. BENSON
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=--‘One might begin to read _The Luck of the Vails_ lying back
in a comfortable chair, and chuckling over the natural talk of Mr.
Benson’s pleasant people. But after an hour or so, assuming that it is a
hot day, and that you turn the leaves without great energy, you find
yourself sitting up and gripping the arms of the chair, and glancing
uneasily over your shoulder at the sound of a step upon the gravel. For
this is a really thrilling and exciting tale of crime and mystery that
Mr. Benson has written. It is readable all through and full of
entertainment.’
THE PRINCESS SOPHIA
BY E. F. BENSON
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Athenæum.=--‘There is brilliance, lightness of touch. The dialogue is
neat and brisk, and the miniature Court and its courtiers are amusingly
treated.’
=Literature.=--‘Told with verve and wit. If the novel is to amuse we
cannot recommend a more agreeable companion than Mr. Benson’s brilliant
friend _The Princess Sophia_.’
=The Westminster Gazette.=--‘A gay and spirited performance, and the
Princess herself a clever picture. It is lively reading, and the
characters bubble along in true Bensonian fashion.’
MAMMON & CO.
BY E. F. BENSON
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Daily Telegraph.=--‘Bright, piquant, and entertaining from beginning
to end, full of humorous sayings and witty things spoken by men and
women who are merry and captivating. There is little to find fault with.
It is a very clever, smart novel, wherein lies a little lesson and much
entertainment.’
=The Pall Mall Gazette.=--‘Mr. Benson’s new story is in his happier and
clever style. Happily, also, the liveliness does not tire. The
_repartee_ and rattle of the “smart set” are the genuine thing, and his
own pretty conceits and happy little audacities of turn are not too
forced.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
* * * * *
THE WINDS OF THE WORLD
BY THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=--‘They are extremely varied in conception, and show much
dramatic skill.’
=The Pall Mall Gazette.=--‘A series of stories which are excellent. They
are fresh and original in conception, and full of dramatic incidents;
and they arc still more remarkable for their freshness as studies of
character.’
THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA
BY BRAM STOKER
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=--‘A good rattling story of buried treasure from the Great
Armada; of second-sight and ancient Pagan mysteries; of sea caves and
storms; of haughty Spaniards; of subterranean passages and ruined
chapels.’
=Punch.=--‘A rattling story which sometimes recalls _Monte Cristo_, anon
_Treasure Island_. The wild scenery by day and night Mr. Stoker
describes with loving touch and master hand. There is in the book the
rare quality of adventure that enthralls the boys and pleases their
parents.’
=The Pall Mall Gazette.=--‘There is a spaciousness about Mr. Stoker’s work
which not infrequently reminds us of the great masters. To any one who
loves an enthralling tale, told with unflagging zest and good spirits,
we recommend _The Mystery of the Sea_.’
THE SHEEPSTEALERS
BY VIOLET JACOB
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Spectator.=--‘The emergence of a book so fresh, so original, and so
wholesome, is peculiarly welcome. We can cordially recommend Miss
Jacob’s powerful and engrossing romance. It deserves to rank along with
_The House with the Green Shutters_ in the limited category of those
tales of the countryside in which there is nothing provincial or
parochial. Few novelists of recent years have set themselves so high a
standard in their initial effort as Miss Jacob, whose work is singularly
free from the faults of a novice. Her style is excellent--lucid,
natural, unaffected; her energy is under control; she understands the
art of self-effacement, of omission, of reticence, and she is as
successful in dealing with her gentle as with her simple characters.’
IF I WERE KING
BY JUSTIN HUNTLY M‘CARTHY
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=--‘A novel of exceptional distinction; the scenes are fresh
and vivid; the movement quick and natural; and, above all, the phrasing
has almost a classical richness and carefulness of verbal selection. It
is seldom that the style of a romantic novel brings it so near to
literature.’
=The Spectator.=--‘Mr. M‘Carthy has made a tale out of his play, and it is
a good tale. There is some excellent verse scattered up and down the
book. He has experimented boldly and has succeeded.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
* * * * *
FOLLY CORNER
BY MRS. HENRY DUDENEY
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Daily Telegraph.=--‘Mrs. Henry Dudeney is to be much congratulated.
_Folly Corner_ is quite a delightful novel--a well-conceived story
admirably told. Side by side with a notable story, the authoress places
little pictures of Nature, of farm-life and country sights and sounds.
Her descriptions of the life at _Folly Corner_ afford a keen and unusual
pleasure. We come to the last page with a strong wish for more, and a
lively and unsatisfied interest in the chief characters concerned.’
THE MATERNITY OF HARRIOTT WICKEN
BY MRS. HENRY DUDENEY
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=Literature.=--‘A notable book. Mrs. Dudeney has the power of translating
a feeling, an impression into a few vivid words, which faithfully
transmit her experience to the mind of the reader, and this is a great
art.’
=The Daily Mail.=--‘The story is as singular as its title, and as strong
as straightforward.... The drama haunts and grips us. There is humour in
it, too, excellent humour. _The Maternity of Harriott Wicken_ is a story
that has elemental human nature in every chapter, and, therefore, sinks
deep in the mind.’
SPINDLE AND PLOUGH
BY MRS. HENRY DUDENEY
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Daily Telegraph.=--‘Mrs. Dudeney has a power, as precious as it is
rare, of conveying a whole scene in a few well-chosen words. Her
observation is acute, her word-painting well-nigh exquisite.’
=The Spectator.=--‘Mrs. Dudeney possesses the inestimable art of grasping
and holding the attention of her readers.’
THE COURTESY DAME
BY R. MURRAY GILCHRIST
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=Literature.=--‘It possesses all the sweetness and rusticity of a
pastoral, but through it a thousand lights and shades of human passion
are seen to play. The story will immediately grip the reader and hold
him until he reaches the last chapter.’
=The Morning Post.=--‘Mr. Murray Gilchrist is an artist to the point of
his pen, whose story is at once among the freshest and sweetest of
recent essays in imaginative writing.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
* * * * *
THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Pall Mall Gazette.=--‘Mrs. Steel’s latest wonderful romance of Indian
life. It is ‘57 in little, and in our own day. Mrs. Steel has again
subtly and keenly shown us how unique is her power of realising the
unstably poised, the troubled half-and-half mind that is the key to the
Indian problem.’
=The Daily Chronicle.=--‘No one, not even the Kipling of an earlier day,
quite does for India what Mrs. Steel does; she sees Indian life
steadily, and sees it whole with a vision that is truthful, sympathetic.
Such is the wealth of her observation that her page is rich with colour
as an Eastern bazaar, and fragrant as a basket of quinces.’
VOICES IN THE NIGHT
BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=--‘It is the native mind which Mrs. Steel shows us as no other
writer has done. She sketches in the native scenes with intimate detail,
with ease in obtaining her effects.’
=Black and White.=--‘Mrs. Steel works on a crowded canvas, yet every
figure stands out distinctly. _Voices in the Night_ is a book to be read
carefully. It is a book to be kept and to be read more than once. It is
a novel of the best kind, and deserves the attention of the readers who
find nothing praiseworthy in the effusions of the popular successes.’
ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS
BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Spectator.=--‘We have read Mrs. Steel’s book with ever-increasing
surprise and admiration--surprise at her insight into people with whom
she can scarcely have been intimate, admiration for the genius which has
enabled her to realise that wonderful welter of the East and West, which
Delhi must have presented just before the Mutiny. There is many an
officer who would give his sword to write military history as Mrs. Steel
has written the history of the rising, the siege, and the storm. It is
the most wonderful picture. We know that none who lived through the
Mutiny will lay the book down without a gasp of admiration, and believe
that the same emotion will be felt by thousands to whom the scenes
depicted are but lurid phantasmagoria.’
=The Daily Chronicle.=--‘A picture, glowing with colour, of the most
momentous and dramatic events in all our Empire’s later history. We have
read many stories having for their setting the lurid background of the
Indian Mutiny, but none that for fidelity to fact, for vivacity of
imagination, for masterly breadth of treatment, comes within half a
dozen places of this.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
* * * * *
IN THE PERMANENT WAY
BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL
_In One Volume, price 6s._