The Porter of Bagdad, and Other Fantasies (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ...own hands before she went away. The casket was empty now, but it had once held her. Is was her own nook with her shelf of favourite books upon the wall: perhaps her beribboned guitar still lay among the cushions heaped upon the windowseat. For she would not be long, he told himself over and over; she would come again, and soon; she would surely come again and bring back sunshine and fair weather to the bleak and stormy town. And there was a plain token and promise of her return, beyond all doubt or peradventhre, plain for all to see, but for only one to understand. In her window, the filmy curtain of maiden white was looped back with a band of green ribbon, the ribbon she had worn that night, as green as the leaves of the harvest appletree in the old manse orchard, which was the first to put forth in spring. Every time he passed, he read the omen thus: " It is to tell me that she will soon return." The ribbon had magic in it to tangle in its folds and knots so many scenes, and hopes and thoughts and dreams. They change their skies but not their hearts, who cross the sea. The southern air must have poison in it as well as balm; it hurts as many as it heals. The fault was not hers, but of that cursed south, so bright, so fierce, so fickle. Little by little the tone of those rare letters changed. They were shorter, more hurried. Here the reader missed an emphasis; there the phrase was overwrought and seemed to say more than the writer meant. And then one would come, striving, without avail to make amends. But it was not the growing coldness alone that wrung the Dreamer's heart. Little by little, with many fierce denials on the part of the old loyalty, he was forced to see, that as she grew, hidden evil things came to light...