Scarlet Stockings. By Louisa May Alcott Chapter 1 "COME out for a drive, Harry? " "Too cold. " "Have a game of billiards? " "Too tired. " "Go and call on the Fairchilds? " "Having an unfortunate prejudice against country girls, I respectfully decline. " "What will you do then? " "Nothing, thank you. " And settling himself more luxuriously upon the couch, Lennox closed his eyes, and appeared to slumber tranquilly. "Scarlet stockings, Harry! " "Where? " "I thought that would succeed! "Not a bad manoeuvre. "I'm glad any thing does interest you," said Kate, petulantly, "though I don't think it amounts to much, for, though you perch yourself at the window every day to see that girl pass, you don't care enough about it to ask her name.
" "I've been waiting to be told. " "It's Belle Morgan, the Doctor's daughter, and my dearest friend. " "Then, of course, she is a blue-belle? " "Don't try to be witty or sarcastic with her, for she will beat you at that. " "Not a dumb-belle then? " "A Canterbury belle in every sense of the word then? " "How odd? " The Tell-Tale Heart. By Edgar Allan Poe Illustration of "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Harry Clarke, from Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 1919.
TRUE! -NERVOUS--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! But why will you say that I am mad? It is impossible to tell how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Now this is the point. I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out: "Who's there?
" I kept quite still and said nothing. Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little--a very, very little crevice in the lantern. But even yet I refrained and kept still. The Gift of the Magi. By O. Henry Originally published on Dec 10, 1905 in The New York Sunday World as "Gifts of the Magi. " ONE DOLLAR AND EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS. THAT WAS ALL. There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. "Will you buy my hair? " The Little Match Girl. By Hans Christian Andersen Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening-- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.
One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. She crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing! The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful curls around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once now thought. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. By Washington Irving Found among the papers of the late Diedrech Knickerbocker. A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky. - Castle of Indolence. In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St.
Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity.