ried to the grave by the children she has been so faithful to. He says she was delighted, as there is nothing they think so much of as a 'pretty burying.' Their habits in this respect, by-the-by, are very funny. My maid, on Sunday last, asked permission to go to the funeral of her father, who had been dead sixteen years! They seem to keep these little last offices until there is a danger of their forgetting their friends, and then call them back to memory by having the funeral. Is it not strange? But what strikes me is the numbers there are about the house. Think of having six women for a family of eight or nine people, and that is besides the washerwoman and the cook! I have my maid, who is to do nothing but my pleasure. Lilia has her nurse, who is always at hand, either sitting by her with work or pushing her chair. Margaret and Mary have their maid; and then there is another who cleans the house generally; and a little girl to run on errands; and, besides, there is a man in the dining-room, with a boy to help him.

"Will I ever get used to these black people? They are a continual source of wonder to me. The grown ones are bad enough, but the children are worse. They look like monkeys. They have all the characteristics of the negro race unmodified. I wonder if it is mentioned as a fact in their natural history that their features do not grow after six years of age; for it seems to me the lips, noses, and eyes of the children of that age have attained their full size, and gradually afterward the body grows up to them. It seems so dreadful for them to be slaves, worth so much money apiece-as if money could buy a human soul. But, after all, the fault does not lie with this generation, but with those who put them here. We have just to accept and submit to the fearful responsibility imposed upon us by our forefathers; there seems no other way out of the difficulty. To free them now, of course, would be impossible such a number of ignorant, helpless wretches, thrown upon our country in a condition of freedom, would be a curse to both races. It seems to me that, from the present state of things, the master is a greater sufferer than the servant-here, in Virginia, at any rate. Now, Mr. Holcombe has over fifty men, women, and children. The men do the hardest work in the fields; the women the lighter services, and the cooking,

washing, and sewing for the 'hands;' while the children, until they are about twelve years old, are useless and expensive appendages, having to be supported without bringing any profit into the concern. I have been surprised to see how comfortably they are provided for. Their cabins, though rough, are perfectly weathertight and comfortable: the fireplaces almost the width of the end of the houses, and the wide chimneys admitting floods of light all around. It is a scene for a painter to go into one of these places, and see the multitudes of children seated inside of the fireplaces upon benches put along the sides, and there the little wooly-heads nod and bob until it is a wonder they are not burned up. But oh, Robert, the wood! You see them bringing entire uncut logs for these fireplaces; and a good fire consists of a moderate sized wood-pile."

JULIA MAGRUDER

[1854-1907]

ELIZABETH W. P. LOMAX

ULIA MAGRUDER was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, September 14, 1854. She was the daughter of Allen B. Magruder, a man of distinction both in law and in letters, and a niece of General John Bankhead Magruder, an officer of note both in the Army of the United States and that of the Confederate States. General Magruder, widely known in England and in America as "Prince John,” became the darling of barrack and boudoir because of his skill as a raconteur of innumerable stories.

After the Virginia household was closed, Miss Magruder's home was for some years with her sister, Mrs. Gibson, in North Carolina. Later in life she maintained an attractive home in Washington, D.C., though much of her time was spent abroad. She traveled extensively, but found time for long periods of rest with her friends. In Paris she was the guest of Madame Bunau-Varilla; in Scotland she visited at Inverlocky Castle in the North of Scotland, the home of her cousin, Lady Abinger, daughter of her uncle, George Magruder, who had formerly been a captain in the United States Navy; in Italy she sojourned with delight on beautiful Lake Maggiore, where her Virginia friend, the Princess Troubetskoy, had a summer home. It was on her native soil, however, that she died. This sad event occurred in St. Luke's Hospital, Richmond, Virginia, June 9, 1907; her body was brought to Charlottesville, Virginia, for burial; and after her wide wanderings over the earth, she sleeps not far from the spot where she was cradled.

Death is but life's renewal, but the pause,
Between two great thoughts of a loving God,
Full of mysterious tenderness; the calm
That follows on a marvelous harmony
The indrawn breath upon a shout of joy,
The backward movement of God's tidal love,
Which for its short withdrawal to the deep,
Comes voluming back with greater weight of hope
And vastless, fills the thirsty shore with peace.

From early girlhood she had written sketches and short-stories for magazines and newspapers, and was but seventeen years old when she made her initial success at literary work by winning a first prize for the best serial story in a competition inaugurated by the Baltimore Sun. It is said that no author can be understood until he creates his own atmosphere. Miss Magruder created hers in 1885, when her first serious work, 'Across the Chasm,' was published anonymously by the Scribners. This book was full of clever comedy, but it followed too close upon the fearful tragedy of civil conflict to elicit impartial judgment from North or South. Speaking of it, she herself once said: "The people of the North and the South look at things so differently." A British review, which had a long article on the subject under the head of American fiction, says: "It is a study of social conditions, perhaps one had better say of social conventions. And it is just. Rarely does one meet a book in which so burning a question is treated so fairly."

Following the publication of 'Across the Chasm,' half a score of novels came from Miss Magruder's pen. She had learned the art of writing with unvarying regularity and thereby of producing copy very rapidly. 'At Anchor,' 'Honored in the Breach,' 'A Magnificent Plebeian,' 'The Violet,' 'A Beautiful Alien,' ‘A Realized Ideal,' 'A Manifest Destiny,' and 'The Thousandth Woman' followed each other in rapid succession. In the preparation of these books she made but one copy of the manuscript, writing for the printer in her own hand. Her next book, 'The Princess Sonia,' was written at the rate of three hours a day for eighteen days and completed in fifty-four hours of work. Mr. Gilder of The Century Magazine requested that a copy of this manuscript be made for safety before he examined it. It was written in Paris while the author was on a visit to Amélie Rives, and was published first serially and afterward in book form by the Century Company. By many this is considered her strongest achievement in literature. As an offset to what she termed her "unpardonable rapid production," there were long periods, extending sometimes from a half to two thirds of a year, in which she did not write at all.

Not long after 'The Princess Sonia' appeared, 'Dead Selves' and 'Struan,' the latter a favorite with the author, were written. Of 'Dead Selves' the London Saturday Review said in an article upon recent fiction: "It is so hard for the modern novelist of manners to bring originality into the drawing-room that we are not inclined to be grudging in our praise of Miss Magruder's very original and powerful story, which clearly proves her right to be included. in the scanty handful of competent American novelists. The story