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Harriet Beecher Stowe - "Queer Little Folks"

Chester K. Steele - "Project Gutenberg surfs with a modem donated by Supra."

Marthy Cannary Burk - "Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane"

C. S. Lewis - "Spirits in Bondage"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

The Man

B >> Bram Stoker >> The Man




'Now Sister Ruth, I will leave you two alone, if you do not mind.
Harold can tell you all you want to know about Alaska; and perhaps,
if you are very good, he will tell some of his adventures! Good
afternoon, dear. I wish you were to be with us to-night; but I know
your rule. I go for my ride. Sultan has had no exercise for five
days; and he looked at me quite reproachfully when we met this
morning. Au revoir, Harold. We shall meet at dinner!'

When she had gone Harold came back from the door, and stood in the
window looking east. The Silver Lady came and stood beside him. She
did not seem to notice his face, but in the mysterious way of women
she watched him keenly. She wished to satisfy her own mind before
she undertook her self-appointed task.

Her eyes were turned towards the headland towards which Stephen on
her white Arab was galloping at breakneck speed. He was too good a
horseman himself, and he knew her prowess on horseback too well to
have any anxiety regarding such a rider at Stephen. It was not fear,
then, that made his face so white, and his eyes to have such an
illimitable sadness.

The Silver Lady made up her mind. All her instincts were to trust
him. She recognised a noble nature, with which truth would be her
surest force.

'Come,' she said, 'sit here, friend; where another friend has often
sat with me. From this you can see all the coastline, and all that
thou wilt!' Harold put a chair beside the one she pointed out; and
when she was seated he sat also. She began at once with a desperate
courage:

'I have wanted much to see thee. I have heard much of thee, before
thy coming.' There was something in the tone of her voice which
arrested his attention, and he looked keenly at her. Here, in the
full light, her face looked sadly white and he noticed that her lips
trembled. He said with all the kindliness of his nature, for from
the first moment he had seen her he had taken to her, her purity and
earnestness and sweetness appealing to some aspiration within him:

'You are pale! I fear you are not well! May I call your maid? Can
I do anything for you?' She waved her hand gently:

'Nay! It is nothing. It is but the result of a sleepless night and
much thought.'

'Oh! I wish I had known! I could have put off my visit; and I could
have come any other time to suit you.' She smiled gently:

'I fear that would have availed but little. It was of thy coming
that I was concerned.' Seeing his look of amazement' she went on
quickly, her voice becoming more steady as she lost sight of herself
in her task:

'Be patient a little with me. I am an old woman; and until recently
it has been many and many years since the calm which I sought here
has been ruffled. I had come to believe that for me earthly troubles
were no more. But there has come into my life a new concern. I have
heard so much of thee, and before thy coming.' The recurrence of the
phrase struck him. He would have asked how such could be, but he
deemed it better to wait. She went on:

'I have been wishful to ask thy advice. But why should not I tell
thee outright that which troubles me? I am not used, at least for
these many years, to dissemble. I can but trust thee in all; and
lean on thy man's mercy to understand, and to aid me!'

'I shall do all in my power, believe me!' said Harold simply. 'Speak
freely!' She pointed out of the window, where Stephen's white horse
seemed on the mighty sweep of green sward like a little dot.

'It is of her that I would speak to thee!' Harold's heart began to
beat hard; he felt that something was coming. The Silver Lady went
on:

'Why thinkest thou that she rideth at such speed? It is her habit!'
He waited. She continued:

'Doth it not seem to thee that such reckless movement is the result
of much trouble; that she seeketh forgetfulness?' He knew that she
was speaking truly; and somehow the conviction was borne upon him
that she knew his secret heart, and was appealing to it. If it was
about Stephen! If her disquiet was about her; then God bless her!
He would be patient and grateful. The Quaker's voice seemed to come
through his thought, as though she had continued speaking whilst he
had paused:

'We have all our own secrets. I have had mine; and I doubt not that
thou hast had, may still have, thine own. Stephen hath hers! May I
speak to thee of her?'

'I shall be proud! Oh! madam, I thank you with all my heart for your
sweet kindness to her. I cannot say what I feel; for she has always
been very dear to me!' In the pause before she spoke again the
beating of his own heart seemed to re-echo the quick sounds of
Stephen's galloping horse. He was surprised at the method of her
speech when it did come; for she forgot her Quaker idiom, and spoke
in the phrasing of her youth:

'Do you love her still?'

'With all my soul! More than ever!'

'Then, God be thanked; for it is in your power to do much good. To
rescue a poor, human, grieving soul from despair!' Her words
conveyed joy greater than she knew. Harold did not himself know why
the air seemed filled with sounds that seemed to answer every doubt
of his life. He felt, understood, with that understanding which is
quicker than thought. The Silver Lady went on now with a rush:

'See, I have trusted you indeed! I have given away another woman's
secret; but I do it without fear. I can see that you also are
troubled; and when I look back on my own life and remember the
trouble that sent me out of the world; a lonely recluse here in this
spot far from the stress of life, I rejoice that any act of mine can
save such another tragedy as my own. I see that I need not go into
detail. You know that I am speaking truth. It was before you came
so heroically on this new scene that she told me her secret. At a
time when nothing was known of you except that you had disappeared.
When she laid bare her poor bleeding heart to me, she did it in such
wise that for an instant I feared that it was a murder which she had
committed. Indeed, she called it so! You understand that I know all
your secret; all her part in it at least. And I know that you
understand what loving duty lies before you. I see it in your eyes;
your brave, true eyes! Go! and the Lord be with thee!' Her
accustomed idiom had returned with prayer. She turned her head away,
and, standing up, leaned against the window. Bending over, he took
her hand and said simply:

'God bless you! I shall come back to thank you either to-night or
to-morrow; and I hope that she will be with me.'

He went quickly out of the room. The woman stood for long looking
out of the window, and following with tear-dimmed eyes the movement
of his great black horse as he swept across country straight as the
crow flies, towards the headland whither Stephen had gone.


Stephen passed over the wide expanse without thought; certainly
without memory of it. Never in her after-life could she recall any
thought that had passed through her mind from the time she left the
open gate of the windmill yard till she pulled up her smoking,
panting horse beside the ruin of the fisher's house.

Stephen was not unhappy! She was not happy in any conscious form.
She was satisfied rather than dissatisfied. She was a woman! A
woman who waited the coming of a man!

For a while she stood at the edge of the cliff, and looked at the
turmoil of the tide churning on the rocks below. Her heart went out
in a great burst of thankfulness that it was her hand which had been
privileged to aid in rescuing so dear a life. Then she looked around
her. Ostensibly it was to survey the ruined house; but in reality to
search, even then under her lashes, the whole green expanse sloping
up to the windmill for some moving figure. She saw that which made
her throat swell and her ears to hear celestial music. But she would
not allow herself to think, of that at all events. She was all woman
now; all-patient, and all-submissive. She waited the man; and the
man was coming!

For a few minutes she walked round the house as though looking at it
critically for some after-purpose. After the wreck Stephen had
suggested to Trinity House that there should be a lighthouse on the
point; and offered to bear the expense of building it. She was
awaiting the answer of the Brethren; and of course nothing would be
done in clearing the ground for any purpose till the answer had come.
She felt now that if that reply was negative, she would herself build
there a pleasure-house of her own.

Then she went to the edge of the cliff, and went down the zigzag by
which the man and horse had gone to their gallant task. At the edge
of the flat rock she sat and thought.

And through all her thoughts passed the rider who even now was
thundering over the green sward on his way to her. In her fancy at
first, and later in her ears, she could hear the sound of his
sweeping gallop.

It was thus that a man should come to a woman!

She had no doubts now. Her quietude was a hymn of grateful praise!

The sound stopped. With all her ears she listened, her heart now
beginning to beat furiously. The sea before her, all lines and
furrows with the passing tide, was dark under the shadow of the
cliff; and the edge of the shadow was marked with the golden hue of
sunset.

And then she saw suddenly a pillar of shadow beyond the line of the
cliff. It rested but a moment, moved swiftly along the edge, and
then was lost to her eyes.

But to another sense there was greater comfort: she heard the
clatter of rolling pebbles and the scramble of eager feet. Harold
was hastening down the zigzag.

Oh! the music of that sound! It woke all the finer instincts of the
woman. All the dross and thought of self passed away. Nature, sweet
and simple and true, reigned alone. Instinctively she rose and came
towards him. In the simple nobility of her self-surrender and her
purpose, which were at one with the grandeur of nature around her, to
be negative was to be false.

Since he had spoken with the Silver Lady Harold had swept through the
air; the rush of his foaming horse over the sward had been but a slow
physical progress, which mocked the on-sweep of his mind. In is
rapid ride he too had been finding himself. By the reading of his
own soul he knew now that love needs a voice; that a man's love, to
be welcomed to the full, should be dominant and self-believing.

When the two saw each other's eyes there was no need for words.
Harold came close, opening wide his arms, Stephen flew to them.

In that divine moment, when their mouths met, both knew that their
souls were one.

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