chromos. Wherever one happens to be there is a book to pick up, and it is always sure to be interesting. Macdonald is a very great favorite with Mrs. Whitney. His picture hangs in her room. And Mrs. Whitney herself? She is a quiet, sweet little woman, dressed in black and gray.

She has no special place for writing when hay-lofts are out of the question. Her "Odd and Even" was mostly written in a hay-loft on summer days. She keeps her few books of reference in a music rack, which she rolls around where fancy leads her, writing generally on a board or book placed on her lap. She copies all the manuscript with a type-writer.

In

One singular thing in Mrs. Whitney's books is, that those circumstances which seem most immaterial are founded on fact. The black cat in "Zerub Throop's Experiment" was taken from life. The whole solution of the plot in "Odd or Even" hung upon a sneeze. writing she generally has an idea from which some life lesson can be taken, which she calls the core of her story. "It comes first," she says, "and I build around it. I sit as a spectator and let my people come upon the stage, not knowing what they are to be myself, but I never take a portrait. If I find one coming unawares I immediately change the features." If a house or room is to be described, Mrs. Whitney puts her idea. first in the form of a pencil sketch and keeps the drawing with her to be sure of consistency. One of her very best books for the home is "We Girls," in which so many beautiful, graceful features of domestic life are drawn,

while a simple story is charmingly told in her wise and gracious way.

MRS. ROSA HARTWICK THORPE,

Author of "Curfew Must Not Ring To-Night."

Mrs. Rosa Hartwick Thorpe is the author of one poem which has made a world-wide and enduring fame for her, such as other writers have spent a life-time in vainly trying to acquire. It was written for the Detroit Commercial Advertiser, and the writer did not probably receive any compensation for it. It was copied in all other papers throughout the Union, and was reproduced in English journals, and translated into the German language in Germany. Mrs. Thorpe was but seventeen years old when she wrote this famous poem. As a child she was a thinker and reader, and in her school days her delightful essays and composition were the admiration of teachers and classmates. She has never made a profession of writing, but has jotted down her thoughts during her household exercises, or in seasons of ill-health, as a sort of mental recreation. Mrs. Thorpe has furnished many short poems to the newspapers, heroic or sentimental incidents of history furnishing her with themes. There is no doubt she might have wealth and fame both with her pen had she made literature a profession.

Mrs. Thorpe is tall and slender. She has dark brown hair, and eyes that indicate remarkable intelligence, as her picture, taken expressly for this work, indicates.

CHAPTER IV.

The Profession of Journalism.

HIRTY years ago a woman who wrote for the papers was looked upon as a great curiosity-a sort of nondescript who occupied a purely ideal position, and whose name was veiled from the contaminating gaze of the public under initial letters or some graceful nom-de-plume of the Lydia Languish school. The term blue stocking was still in vogue for any woman who dared let her proclivity for writing stories or poetry be known, and the vulgar taste dictated such verses as the following specimen as a means of ridicule:

"To see a lady of such taste

So slatternly is shocking,

Your pen and poetry lay by

And learn to darn your stockings."

In spite of these discouragements many daring women did manage to add a respectable sum to their otherwise meagre purses every year, by writing poetry, essays and stories for the papers. Among these was Emily C. Chubbuck, who, under the alliterative name of Fanny Forrester, wrote very acceptable poems and stories,