elves what it is hoped
others will take pleasure in showing them. Examples of the selections
which contain outlines, questions and comments designed to help in the
study of the plot may be found as follows:

Volume I, page 264. _The Twin Brothers._
Volume I, page 395. _Something._
Volume II, page 124. _The Snow Queen._
Volume IV, page 174. _Incident of the French Camp._
Volume VIII, page 364. _The Tempest._
Volume IX, page 232. _The Gold-Bug._

B. THE PERSONS

In most stories, be they brief and simple or as long and complicated as
the two-volume novel, the interest centers in one or more persons whose
character the reader learns to understand, and whose success or failure,
joy or grief gives him pleasure or excites his sympathy. All events
center about the hero or heroes, and while other persons may be
mentioned, and even win the reader's attention for a time, they finally
subside into the background and are remembered only as they contribute
to greater interest in the principal characters.

Every author tries to make his heroes and heroines speak and act like
real human beings and show their characters by their actions and their
words. Sometimes, however, he tells the reader just how his people look,
feel and think, and describes their characters to give an interest in
what happens to them. A more interesting method and a more artistic one
is to leave the persons to disclose themselves as the story progresses,
making them show by the way they act and by what they say under certain
circumstances the strong and weak qualities in their natures. Nothing is
more interesting than to watch the development of character in the hero
of a story, particularly when it is accomplished under conditions which
are themselves interesting.

In studying the persons in a story, then, the chief things to keep in
mind are the following:

1. The principal person, or hero--the one, or perhaps the ones, in whose
fortunes the reader is most vitally interested.

2. The secondary persons who are introduced merely to add variety or to
throw light upon the character of the hero, or to assist to bring about
the events which center about him.

3. The appearance, dress and manners of the persons.

4. The ways in which the author makes his persons lifelike and shows the
reader what they really are.

5. The characters of the persons as they appear or as they are developed
in the progress of the story. T