longs, new questions will arise. They will prove to be more interesting than the recapitulation of old feuds. A new generation is likely to arise which will ask, What was the Irish Question?

THE LITERARY TASTES OF MY

my

GREAT-GRANDMOTHER

IN old family Bible is the record of the birth of my grandmother: Amanda Dunlap, born May 26, 1802. She was born in a pioneer's cabin on the banks of the Ohio River.

The birth record tells all I know of the literary tastes of my great-grandmother. She had been bred in the Virginia mountains and had come down into the great valley of the Ohio. She was familiar with the perils of the wilderness, and was not afraid of wildcats and Indians. Books were not plentiful in the backwoods of America, yet she had shed tears over the book which fashionable ladies in London were weeping over at the same time. I like to think that her emotions were up to date.

It was in 1798 that "The Children of the Abbey" was published. Four years later, my greatgrandmother named her first-born daughter Amanda. She was one of a regiment of Amandas named after the best seller of the day. I take up "The Children of the Abbey" and am at once introduced to the adorable and tender-hearted

Amanda. She is coming up the driveway in a chaise. When she reaches her nurse's cottage, she begins an apostrophe:

"Hail, sweet asylum of my infancy. Hail, ye venerable trees. My happiest hours of childish gayety were passed beneath your shelter. Here unmolested may I wait till the rude storm of sorrow is overblown.' Such were the words of Amanda, as she turned down a little verdant lane to her nurse's cottage. A number of tender recollections rushing upon her mind rendered her almost unable to alight.”

That was just like Amanda - she kept acting in that way all through the book. She was a creature of palpitating sensibility, with feelings so delicate that they responded to every breath. Amanda was beautiful to a fault, and most beautiful when in tears. When in doubt she always fainted, and there was always some one to sustain her in these emergencies.

Amanda never knew her own mind: that would have been unmaidenly. She was all pure feeling which never fell into anything so vulgar as common sense. She knew that she was lovely, but that did not make her proud; it only made her exquisitely timid.

Her habitual attitude is that of adorable embarrassment. It doesn't matter what it is, it has the same effect on Amanda. When she is introduced to Lord Mortimer, "Her conscious eyes were instantly bent on the ground, a crimson glow was suddenly succeeded by a deadly paleness, and her head sunk on her bosom.”

Of course, she fell madly in love with Lord Mortimer, who fell madly in love with her. But when the course of true love threatened to run smooth, the lovers invented all sorts of impediments to make rough water. Whenever there was a chance of misunderstanding, they misunderstood. Whenever a word would have straightened everything out, "Delicacy sealed the lips of Amanda and she blushed violently." This, of course, always upset Lord Mortimer, and rendered his judgment unreliable.

Whenever, for the moment, things seemed to be going well with Amanda, she had a presentiment that it was preparatory to a change for the worse. After Lord Mortimer had assured her in the plainest terms of his undying affection, "Amanda returned to her chamber in a greater state of happiness than she had ever experienced — and immediately burst into tears. For it was

a happiness that agitated rather than soothed her. Her feelings were acutely susceptible to every impression.

"They turned at the touch of joy and woe,

And turning trembled too."

As for Lord Mortimer, the spotless hero, his sensibilities were as acute as Amanda's, if not more so. When anything was to be done, you could count on Lord Mortimer for not doing it. His feelings always interfered and tripped him up. At a crucial moment, we are told, "Lord Mortimer trembled universally and was compelled to have recourse to his handkerchief to hide his emotion." When his lordship emerged from his handkerchief, the time for action had passed.

So the story goes on for several hundred pages. There are blushes and fainting spells and tearful reconciliations. There is only one character who knows his own mind, and that is the wicked Colonel Belgrave, who is bent on abducting Amanda. He pursues his object with a pertinacity and ingenuity that does credit to his understanding, though not to his moral nature.

At last fortune favors the innocent, and all their enemies come to a bad end. The hero and the heroine are vindicated and there seems to be