There was no wind in all that sweep of sky.

When it was over, it was not really over, and that was the trouble.

The middle years - the eighteen-seventies, 'eighties, 'nineties - were a time of moral bankruptcy when men stole millions by a stroke of the pen or by the simple expedient of printing tons of worthless paper.

About fifteen miles above New Orleans the river goes very slowly. It has broadened out there until it is almost a sea and the water is yellow with the mud of half a continent. Where the sun strikes it, it is golden.

From where they stood, they could see the castle.

The sky brightened, the wind calmed down,