

E-text prepared by Annie R. McGuire from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustration. See 38531-h.htm or 38531-h.zip:
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/38531/pg38531-images.html)
      or
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38531/38531-h.zip)


      Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      http://www.archive.org/details/cihm_05009


Transcriber's note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). THE BECKONING HAND ETC. *       *       *       *       *


_STORIES BY GRANT ALLEN._


STRANGE STORIES. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with a Frontispiece by George Du Maurier, 6_s_. ;
post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s_. "Mr. Grant Allen has fully established his claim to be heard
     henceforth as a story-teller."--ACADEMY. "No one will be able to say that the stories are dull. The lighter
     stories can be read with pleasure by everybody, and the book can be
     dipped into anywhere without disappointment. One and all, the
     stories are told with a delightful ease and with an abundance of
     lively humour."--ATHENÆUM. "Almost all the stories are good, coming nearer to the weird power
     of Poe than any that we remember to have seen." --PALL MALL GAZETTE. "Perhaps the best fiction of the year is 'Strange Stories.' Mr.
     Grant Allen certainly took his friends by surprise when he burst
     forth as the author of the stories which had appeared under the
     signature of J. Arbuthnot Wilson. He was known to us all as one of
     the most able of the rising men of the evolution school, his
     contributions to modern science being of considerable value. Few
     suspected him of such levity as telling light stories. The volume
     is distinctly good." --COUNTY GENTLEMAN. PHILISTIA. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 3_s_. 6_d_. ; post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s_. "A very clever, well-written novel, full of freshness and
     originality."--ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. "A book displaying considerable cleverness.... Very readable and
     clever."--ACADEMY. "'Philistia' is distinctly clever, and much may be learned from its
     perusal." --MORNING POST. BABYLON. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with twelve Illustrations by P. Macnab, 3_s_. 6_d_. "The book justifies itself amply. It is fresh, entertaining, and
     pleasant from beginning to end. The author has kept in check his
     peculiar power of weird and fantastic realism, but he has proved
     himself equally at home in the observation of commonplace
     character, and the reproduction of everyday life." --PALL MALL
     GAZETTE. "Very bright and very amusing.... That it stands far above the
     average of contemporary fiction goes without saying."--SPECTATOR. FOR MAIMIE'S SAKE. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6_s_. "'For Maimie's Sake' is a book that every one who has made
     acquaintance with the stories signed by 'J. Arbuthnot Wilson' will
     naturally take up with pleasure. Pleasurable anticipation soon
     becomes interest, and this interest must rapidly grow into absorbed
     attention. The humour throughout the first part of Mr. Allen's
     story is delightful. The reader falls in love with laughing,
     lovely, unconventional Maimie."--ACADEMY. "This is a very remarkable book. Maimie is essentially human,
     intensely womanly, and there is something so bewitching in her
     childish ignorance, something so innocent in her wickedness, that
     we can understand her friends' and her lovers' infatuation for
     her.... There is power of a very high order in writing which can so
     consistently, yet without the smallest effort, concentrate the
     reader's attention on the sinner as apart from the sin. There is
     not a character in the book which fails to interest us, and the
     writing is, of its kind, faultless."--TIME. IN ALL SHADES. 3 vols, crown 8vo, cloth extra, 31_s_. 6_d_. "Mr. Grant Allen could not write a dull story if he wished to do
     so.... The plot is capitally developed. There is one extremely fine
     character, Louis Delgado, who stirs up the negroes to revolt; and
     there is a scene where an attack is made by the negroes on a
     planter's home, which, for dramatic force, has rarely been equalled
     of late in fiction. The novel has, in addition to excellence of
     plot and situation, all the charm that comes of bright and easy
     dialogue and of character-drawing far above what is ordinarily
     found. In short, the novel is one to delight every one of good
     taste."--SCOTSMAN. "Nora Dupuy is a true, brave, eminently lovable woman, and stands
     out in the pages of 'In all Shades' as an eminently charming as
     well as characteristic figure.... On the whole, this is a story of
     unusual excellence." --PALL MALL GAZETTE. LONDON: CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration: "I'M SO GLAD YOU BROUGHT NELLIE HOLT A FLOWER." See p. 134.] THE BECKONING HAND AND OTHER STORIES

by

GRANT ALLEN

Author of "Strange Stories," "In All Shades," "Philistia," etc. [Illustration]

With a Frontispiece by Townley Green







London
Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly
1887




PREFACE. Of the thirteen stories included in this volume, "The Gold Wulfric,"
"The Two Carnegies," and "John Cann's Treasure" originally appeared in
the pages of the _Cornhill_; "The Third Time" and "The Search Party's
Find" are from _Longman's Magazine_; "Harry's Inheritance" first saw the
light in the _English Illustrated_; and "Lucretia," "My Uncle's Will,"
"Olga Davidoff's Husband," "Isaline and I," "Professor Milliter's
Dilemma," and "In Strict Confidence," obtained hospitable shelter
between the friendly covers of _Belgravia_. My title-piece, "The
Beckoning Hand," is practically new, having only been published before
as the Christmas supplement of a provincial newspaper. My thanks are due
to Messrs. Smith and Elder, Longmans, Macmillan, and Chatto and Windus
for kind permission to reprint most of the stories here. If anybody
reads them and likes them, let me take this opportunity (as an
unprejudiced person) of recommending to him my other volume of "Strange
Stories," which I consider every bit as gruesome as this one. Should I
succeed in attaining the pious ambition of the Fat Boy, and "making your
flesh creep," then, as somebody once remarked before, "this work will
not have been written in vain." G. A. THE NOOK, DORKING,
  _Christmas Day_, 1886. CONTENTS.