GEORGE BERNARD SHAW - "MAJOR BARBARA"

Charles Dickens - "The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin"

Rene Bazin - "The Ink Stain, v3"

Leacock, Stephen, 1869 1944 - "Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich"

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).

Books: The Head of the House of Coombe

F >> Frances Hodgson Burnett >> The Head of the House of Coombe




"It's my belief that if I told her she was she wouldn't know what
the word meant. It was me she got the name from," Andrews still
laughed as she explained. "I used to tell her about the Lady
Downstairs would hear if she made a noise, or I'd say I'd let her
have a peep at the Lady Downstairs if she was very good. I saw
she had a kind of awe of her though she liked her so much, so it
was a good way of managing her. You mayn't believe me but for
a good bit I didn't take in that she didn't know there was such
things as mothers and, when I did take it in, I saw there wasn't
any use in trying to explain. She wouldn't have understood."

"How would you go about to explain a mother, anyway?" suggested
Jennings. "I'd have to say that she was the person that had the
right to slap your head if you didn't do what she told you."

"I'd have to say that she was the woman that could keep you slaving
at kitchen maid's work fifteen hours a day," said Mrs. Blayne;
"My mother was cook in a big house and trained me under her."

"I never had one," said Andrews stiffly. The truth was that she
had taken care of eight infant brothers and sisters, while her
maternal parent slept raucously under the influence of beer when
she was not quarrelling with her offspring.

Jane, the housemaid, had passed a not uncomfortable childhood in
the country and was perhaps of a soft nature.

"I'd say that a mother's the one that you belong to and that's
fond of you, even if she does keep you straight," she put in.

"Her mother isn't fond of her and doesn't keep herself straight,"
said Jennings. "So that wouldn't do."

"And she doesn't slap her head or teach her to do kitchen maid's
work," put in Mrs. Blayne, "so yours is no use, Mr. Jennings, and
neither is mine. Miss Andrews 'll have to cook up an explanation
of her own herself when she finds she has to."

"She can get it out of a Drury Lane melodrama," said Jennings, with
great humour. "You'll have to sit down some night, Miss Andrews,
and say, 'The time has come, me chee-ild, when I must tell you
All'."

In this manner were Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and her maternal affections
discussed below stairs. The interesting fact remained that to Robin
the Lady Downstairs was merely a radiant and beautiful being who
floated through certain rooms laughing or chattering like a bird,
and always wearing pretty clothes, which were different each time
one beheld her. Sometimes one might catch a glimpse of her through
a door, or, if one pressed one's face against the window pane at
the right moment, she might get into her bright little carnage in
the street below and, after Jennings had shut its door, she might
be seen to give a lovely flutter to her clothes as she settled
back against the richly dark blue cushions.

It is a somewhat portentous thing to realize that a newborn
human creature can only know what it is taught. The teaching may
be conscious or unconscious, intelligent or idiotic, exquisite
or brutal. The images presented by those surrounding it, as its
perceptions awaken day by day, are those which record themselves
on its soul, its brain, its physical being which is its sole means
of expressing, during physical life, all it has learned. That
which automatically becomes the Law at the dawning of newborn
consciousness remains, to its understanding, the Law of Being,
the Law of the Universe. To the cautious of responsibility this
at times wears the aspect of an awesome thing, suggesting, however
remotely, that it might seem well, perhaps, to remove the shoes
from one's feet, as it were, and tread with deliberate and delicate
considering of one's steps, as do the reverently courteous even
on the approaching of an unknown altar.

This being acknowledged a scientific, as well as a spiritual truth,
there remains no mystery in the fact that Robin at six years
old--when she watched the sparrows in the Square Gardens--did not
know the name of the feeling which had grown within her as a result
of her pleasure in the chance glimpses of the Lady Downstairs. It
was a feeling which made her eager to see her or anything which
belonged to her; it made her strain her child ears to catch the
sound of her voice; it made her long to hear Andrews or the other
servants speak of her, and yet much too shy to dare to ask any
questions. She had found a place on the staircase leading to the
Nursery, where, by squeezing against the balustrade, she could
sometimes see the Lady pass in and out of her pink bedroom. She
used to sit on a step and peer between the railing with beating
heart. Sometimes, after she had been put to bed for the night and
Andrews was safely entertained downstairs, Robin would be awakened
from her first sleep by sounds in the room below and would creep
out of bed and down to her special step and, crouching in a hectic
joy, would see the Lady come out with sparkling things in her hair
and round her lovely, very bare white neck and arms, all swathed
in tints and draperies which made her seem a vision of colour and
light. She was so radiant a thing that often the child drew in
her breath with a sound like a little sob of ecstasy, and her lip
trembled as if she were going to cry. But she did not know that what
she felt was the yearning of a thing called love--a quite simple
and natural common thing of which she had no reason for having
any personal knowledge. As she was unaware of mothers, so she was
unaware of affection, of which Andrews would have felt it to be
superfluously sentimental to talk to her.

On the very rare occasions when the Lady Downstairs appeared on
the threshold of the Day Nursery, Robin--always having been freshly
dressed in one of her nicest frocks--stood and stared with immense
startled eyes and answered in a whisper the banal little questions
put to her. The Lady appeared at such rare intervals and remained
poised upon the threshold like a tropic plumaged bird for moments
so brief, that there never was time to do more than lose breath and
gaze as at a sudden vision. Why she came--when she did come--Robin
did not understand. She evidently did not belong to the small,
dingy nurseries which grew shabbier every year as they grew steadily
more grimy under the persistent London soot and fogs.

Feather always held up her draperies when she came. She would not
have come at all but for the fact that she had once or twice been
asked if the child was growing pretty, and it would have seemed
absurd to admit that she never saw her at all.

"I think she's rather pretty," she said downstairs. "She's round
and she has a bright colour--almost too bright, and her eyes are
round too. She's either rather stupid or she's shy--and one's as
bad as the other. She's a child that stares."

If, when Andrews had taken her into the Gardens, she had played
with other children, Robin would no doubt have learned something
of the existence and normal attitude of mothers through the
mere accident of childish chatter, but it somehow happened that
she never formed relations with the charges of other nurses. She
took it for granted for some time that this was because Andrews
had laid down some mysterious law. Andrews did not seem to form
acquaintances herself. Sometimes she sat on a bench and talked
a little to another nurse, but she seldom sat twice with the same
person. It was indeed generally her custom to sit alone, crocheting
or sewing, with a rather lofty and exclusive air and to call Robin
back to her side if she saw her slowly edging towards some other
child.

"My rule is to keep myself to myself," she said in the kitchen.
"And to look as if I was the one that would turn up noses, if
noses was to be turned up. There's those that would snatch away
their children if I let Robin begin to make up to them. Some
wouldn't, of course, but I'm not going to run risks. I'm going to
save my own pride."

But one morning when Robin was watching her sparrows, a nurse,
who was an old acquaintance, surprised Andrews by appearing in the
Gardens with two little girls in her charge. They were children
of nine and eleven and quite sufficient for themselves, apart from
the fact that they regarded Robin as a baby and, therefore, took
no notice of her. They began playing with skipping ropes, which
left their nurse free to engage in delighted conversation with
Andrews.

It was conversation so delightful that Robin was forgotten, even
to the extent of being allowed to follow her sparrows round a
clump of shrubbery and, therefore, out of Andrews' sight, though
she was only a few yards away. The sparrows this morning were
quarrelsome and suddenly engaged in a fight, pecking each other
furiously, beating their wings and uttering shrill, protesting
chipperings. Robin did not quite understand what they were doing
and stood watching them with spellbound interest.

It was while she watched them that she heard footsteps on the
gravel walk which stopped near her and made her look up to see who
was at her side. A big boy in Highland kilts and bonnet and sporan
was standing by her, and she found herself staring into a pair of
handsome deep blue eyes, blue like the waters of a hillside tarn.
They were wide, glowing, friendly eyes and none like them had ever
looked into hers before. He seemed to her to be a very big boy
indeed, and in fact, he was unusually tall and broad for his age,
but he was only eight years old and a simple enough child pagan.
Robin's heart began to beat as it did when she watched the Lady
Downstairs, but there was something different in the beating. It
was something which made her red mouth spread and curve itself into
a smile which showed all her small teeth.

So they stood and stared at each other and for some strange, strange
reason--created, perhaps, with the creating of Man and still hidden
among the deep secrets of the Universe--they were drawn to each
other--wanted each other--knew each other. Their advances were, of
course, of the most primitive--as primitive and as much a matter
of instinct as the nosing and sniffing of young animals. He spread
and curved his red mouth and showed the healthy whiteness of his
own handsome teeth as she had shown her smaller ones. Then he began
to run and prance round in a circle, capering like a Shetland pony
to exhibit at once his friendliness and his prowess. He tossed his
curled head and laughed to make her laugh also, and she not only
laughed but clapped her hands. He was more beautiful than anything
she had ever seen before in her life, and he was plainly trying
to please her. No child creature had ever done anything like it
before, because no child creature had ever been allowed by Andrews
to make friends with her. He, on his part, was only doing what
any other little boy animal would have done--expressing his child
masculinity by "showing off" before a little female. But to this
little female it had never happened before.

It was all beautifully elemental. As does not too often happen,
two souls as well as two bodies were drawn towards each other by
the Magnet of Being. When he had exhibited himself for a minute
or two he came back to her, breathing fast and glowing.

"My pony in Scotland does that. His name is Chieftain. He is a
Shetland pony and he is only that high," he measured forty inches
from the ground. "I'm called Donal. What are you called?"

"Robin," she answered, her lips and voice trembling with joy. He
was so beautiful. His hair was bright and curly. His broad forehead
was clear white where he had pushed back his bonnet with the eagle
feather standing upright on it. His strong legs and knees were
white between his tartan kilt and his rolled back stockings. The
clasps which held his feather and the plaid over his shoulder were
set with fine stones in rich silver. She did not know that he was
perfectly equipped as a little Highland chieftain, the head of
his clan, should be.

They began to play together, and the unknown Fates, which do their
work as they choose, so wrought on this occasion as to cause
Andrews' friend to set forth upon a journey through a story so
exciting in its nature that its hearer was held spellbound and
oblivious to her surroundings themselves. Once, it is true, she
rose as in a dream and walked round the group of shrubs, but the
Fates had arranged for that moment also. Robin was alone and was
busily playing with some leaves she had plucked and laid on the
seat of a bench for some mysterious reason. She looked good for
an hour's safe occupation, and Andrews returned to her friend's
detailed and intimate version of a great country house scandal,
of which the papers were full because it had ended in the divorce
court.

Donal had, at that special moment, gone to pick some of the biggest
leaves from the lilac bush of which the Gardens contained numerous
sooty specimens. The leaves Robin was playing with were some he
had plucked first to show her a wonderful thing. If you laid a leaf
flat on the seat of the bench and were fortunate enough to possess
a large pin you could prick beautiful patterns on the leaf's
greenness--dots and circles, and borders and tiny triangles of a
most decorative order. Neither Donal nor Robin had a pin but Donal
had, in his rolled down stocking, a little dirk the point of which
could apparently be used for any interesting purpose. It was really
he who did the decoration, but Robin leaned against the bench and
looked on enthralled. She had never been happy before in the entire
course of her brief existence. She had not known or expected and
conditions other than those she was familiar with--the conditions
of being fed and clothed, kept clean and exercised, but totally
unloved and unentertained. She did not even know that this nearness
to another human creature, the exchange of companionable looks,
which were like flashes of sunlight, the mutual outbreaks of child
laughter and pleasure were happiness. To her, what she felt, the
glow and delight of it, had no name but she wanted it to go on
and on, never to be put an end to by Andrews or anyone else.

The boy Donal was not so unconscious. He had been happy all his
life. What he felt was that he had liked this little girl the
minute he saw her. She was pretty, though he thought her immensely
younger than himself, and, when she had looked up at him with her
round, asking eyes, he had wanted to talk to her and make friends.
He had not played much with boys and he had no haughty objection
to girls who liked him. This one did, he saw at once.

Through what means children so quickly convey to each other--while
seeming scarcely to do more than play--the entire history of their
lives and surroundings, is a sort of occult secret. It is not a
matter of prolonged conversation. Perhaps images created by the
briefest of unadorned statements produce on the unwritten tablets
of the child mind immediate and complete impressions. Safe as
the locked garden was, Andrews cannot have forgotten her charge
for any very great length of time and yet before Donal, hearing
his attendant's voice from her corner, left Robin to join her and
be taken home, the two children knew each other intimately. Robin
knew that Donal's home was in Scotland--where there are hills and
moors with stags on them. He lived there with "Mother" and he had
been brought to London for a visit. The person he called "Mother"
was a woman who took care of him and he spoke of her quite often.
Robin did not think she was like Andrews, though she did not in
the least know why. On his part Donal knew about the nurseries
and the sparrows who hopped about on the slates of the houses
opposite. Robin did not describe the nurseries to him, but Donal
knew that they were ugly and that there were no toys in them and
nothing to do. Also, in some mystic fashion, he realized that
Andrews would not let Robin play with him if she saw them together,
and that, therefore, they must make the most of their time. Full
of their joy in each other, they actually embarked upon an ingenious
infant intrigue, which involved their trying to meet behind the
shrubs if they were brought to the Gardens the next day. Donal was
sure he could come because his nurse always did what he asked of
her. He was so big now that she was not a real nurse, but she had
been his nurse when he was quite little and "Mother" liked her
to travel with them. He had a tutor but he had stayed behind in
Scotland at Braemarnie, which was their house. Donal would come
tomorrow and he would look for Robin and when she saw him she must
get away from Andrews and they would play together again.

"I will bring one of my picture books," he said grandly. "Can you
read at all?"

"No," answered Robin adoring him. "What are picture books?"

"Haven't you any?" he blurted out.

"No," said Robin. She looked at the gravel walk, reflecting a
moment thoughtfully on the Day Nursery and the Night Nursery. Then
she lifted her eyes to the glowing blueness of his and said quite
simply, "I haven't anything."

He suddenly remembered things his Mother had told him about poor
people. Perhaps she was poor. Could she be poor when her frock
and hat and coat were so pretty? It was not polite to ask. But the
thought made him love her more. He felt something warm rush all
over his body. The truth, if he had been old enough to be aware of
it, was that the entire simpleness of her acceptance of things as
they were, and a something which was unconsciousness of any cause
for complaint, moved his child masculinity enormously. His old
nurse's voice came from her corner again.

"I must go to Nanny," he said, feeling somehow as if he had been
running fast. "I'll come tomorrow and bring two picture books."

He was a loving, warm blooded child human thing, and the expression
of affection was, to him, a familiar natural impulse. He put his
strong little eight-year-old arms round her and kissed her full
on her mouth, as he embraced her with all his strength. He kissed
her twice.

It was the first time for Robin. Andrews did not kiss. There was
no one else. It was the first time, and Nature had also made her
a loving, warm blooded, human thing. How beautiful he was--how
big--how strong his arms were--and how soft and warm his mouth
felt. She stood and gazed at him with wide asking eyes and laughed a
little. She had no words because she did not know what had happened.

"Don't you like to be kissed?" said Donal, uncertain because she
looked so startled and had not kissed him back.

"Kissed," she repeated, with a small, caught breath, "ye-es." She
knew now what it was. It was being kissed. She drew nearer at once
and lifted up her face as sweetly and gladly, as a flower lifts
itself to the sun. "Kiss me again," she said quite eagerly. As
ingenuously and heartily as before, he kissed her again and, this
time, she kissed too. When he ran quickly away, she stood looking
after him with smiling, trembling lips, uplifted, joyful--wondering
and amazed.






CHAPTER VIII





When she went back to Andrews she carried the pricked leaves with
her. She could not have left them behind. From what source she
had drawn a characterizing passionate, though silent, strength of
mind and body, it would be difficult to explain. Her mind and her
emotions had been left utterly unfed, but they were not of the inert
order which scarcely needs feeding. Her feeling for the sparrows
had held more than she could have expressed; her secret adoration
of the "Lady Downstairs" was an intense thing. Her immediate
surrender to the desire in the first pair of human eyes--child eyes
though they were--which had ever called to her being for response,
was simple and undiluted rapture. She had passed over her little
soul without a moment's delay and without any knowledge of the
giving. It had flown from her as a bird might fly from darkness
into the sun. Eight-year-old Donal was the sun.

No special tendency to innate duplicity was denoted by the fact
that she had acquired, through her observation of Andrews, Jennings,
Jane and Mrs. Blayne, the knowledge that there were things it was
best not to let other people know. You were careful about them.
From the occult communications between herself and Donal, which
had resulted in their intrigue, there had of course evolved a
realizing sense of the value of discretion. She did not let Andrews
see the decorated leaves, but put them into a small pocket in her
coat. Her Machiavellian intention was to slip them out when she
was taken up to the Nursery. Andrews was always in a hurry to go
downstairs to her lunch and she would be left alone and could find
a place where she could hide them.

Andrews' friend started when Robin drew near to them. The child's
cheeks and lips were the colour of Jacqueminot rose petals. Her
eyes glowed with actual rapture.

"My word! That's a beauty if I ever saw one," said the woman.
"First sight makes you jump. My word!"

Robin, however, did not know what she was talking about and in
fact scarcely heard her. She was thinking of Donal. She thought
of him as she was taken home, and she did not cease thinking of
him during the whole rest of the day and far into the night. When
Andrews left her, she found a place to hide the pricked leaves and
before she put them away she did what Donal had done to her--she
kissed them. She kissed them several times because they were Donal's
leaves and he had made the stars and lines on them. It was almost
like kissing Donal but not quite so beautiful.

After she was put to bed at night and Andrews left her she lay
awake for a long time. She did not want to go to sleep because
everything seemed so warm and wonderful and she could think and
think and think. What she thought about was Donal's face, his
delightful eyes, his white forehead with curly hair pushed back
with his Highland bonnet. His plaid swung about when he ran and
jumped. When he held her tight the buttons of his jacket hurt her
a little because they pressed against her body. What was "Mother"
like? Did he kiss her? What pretty stones there were in his clasps
and buckles! How nice it was to hear him laugh and how fond he
was of laughing. Donal! Donal! Donal! He liked to play with her
though she was a girl and so little. He would play with her tomorrow.
His cheeks were bright pink, his hair was bright, his eyes were
bright. He was all bright. She tried to see into the blueness of
his eyes again as it seemed when they looked at each other close
to. As she began to see the clear colour she fell asleep.

The power which had on the first morning guided Robin to the
seclusion behind the clump of shrubs and had provided Andrews with
an enthralling companion, extended, the next day, an even more
beneficient and complete protection. Andrews was smitten with a
cold so alarming as to confine her to bed. Having no intention of
running any risks, whatsoever, she promptly sent for a younger
sister who, temporarily being "out of place", came into the house
as substitute. She was a pretty young woman who assumed no special
responsibilities and was fond of reading novels.

"She's been trained to be no trouble, Anne. She'll amuse herself
without bothering you as long as you keep her out," Andrews said
of Robin.

Anne took "Lady Audley's Secret" with her to the Gardens and,
having led her charge to a shady and comfortable seat which exactly
suited her, she settled herself for a pleasant morning.

"Now, you can play while I read," she said to Robin.

As they had entered the Gardens they had passed, not far from the
gate, a bench on which sat a highly respectable looking woman who
was hemming a delicate bit of cambric, and evidently in charge of
two picture books which lay on the seat beside her. A fine boy in
Highland kilts was playing a few yards away. Robin felt something
like a warm flood rush over her and her joy was so great and
exquisite that she wondered if Anne felt her hand trembling. Anne
did not because she was looking at a lady getting into a carriage
across the street.

The marvel of that early summer morning in the gardens of a
splendid but dingy London square thing was not a thing for which
human words could find expression. It was not an earthly thing,
or, at least, not a thing belonging to an earth grown old. A child
Adam and Eve might have known something like it in the Garden of
Eden. It was as clear and simple as spring water and as warm as
the sun.

Anne's permission to "play" once given, Robin found her way behind
the group of lilacs and snowballs. Donal would come, not only
because he was so big that Nanny would let him do what he wanted
to do, but because he would do everything and anything in the
world. Donal! Donal! Her heart was a mere baby's heart but it
beat as if she were seventeen--beat with pure rapture. He was all
bright and he would laugh and laugh.

The coming was easy enough for Donal. He had told his mother and
Nanny rejoicingly about the little girl he had made friends with
and who had no picture books. But he did not come straight to
her. He took his picture books under his arm, and showing all his
white teeth in a joyous grin, set out to begin their play properly
with a surprise. He did not let her see him coming but "stalked"
her behind the trees and bushes until he found where she was
waiting, and then thrust his face between the branches of a tall
shrub near her and laughed the outright laugh she loved. And when
she turned she was looking straight into the clear blue she had
tried to see when she fell asleep. "Donal! Donal!" she cried like
a little bird with but one note.