Harper's Young People, January 10, 1882

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Various. Harper's Young People, January 10, 1882

MARJORIE'S NEW-YEAR'S EVE

PERILS AND PRIVATIONS

THE TALKING LEAVES.1

THE STORY OF A LITTLE DOG'S TAIL

MY FAMILY OF ORIOLES

THE LAMENT OF A LEFT-OVER DOLL

FELIX

SLUMBER SONG

A STEAM CHAIR

"TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH."

Отрывок из книги

In a letter which Miss Martineau once showed me, from a relative of hers, long dead, addressed to her great niece from Southsea, near Portsmouth, and dated August 9, 1782, there occurred this singular passage:

"The day is calm and pleasant, and as I sit at the open window, the great vessel in the offing, betwixt me and the Fair Island" (the Isle of Wight used to be so called), "seems to sway not a hand-breadth, nor to flutter a single pennant." Then, in a trembling hand, but still the same, was added: "A dreadful thing has happened. When I had written that beginning of my letter, Dorothy, I looked again southward; the sea was as waveless as before, and the Fair Island sparkled in the sun, but betwixt us and it I saw no trace of the great three-decker. I thought my brain had gone wrong, and rang the bell for Agnes; but when she too could see nothing of the ship, a terrible apprehension took hold of me; and when the alarm-guns from the fort began to thunder, I knew she had gone down. I hear near a thousand men were aboard of her."

.....

Slower and more and more cautiously the mining train again moved forward, until from under the last of the pine-trees Captain Skinner could look out upon the valley and see that it was empty.

How would he and his men have felt if they could have known that at that very minute Murray was chipping away with his chisel at his inscriptions upon the central monument of the great Buckhorn Mine?

.....