.
She is, as usual, over-full of work, sells as fast as she can write,
and has at the present time more commissions than she can get through
during the next few years. Everything is very orderly--each big or
little bundle of MSS. is neatly tied together and duly labelled. She
opens one drawer of a great knee-hole writing table, which discloses
hundreds of half sheets of paper. 'Yes', she says, with a laugh; 'I
scribble my notes on these: they are the backs of my friends' letters;
how astonished many of them would be if they knew that the last half
sheet they write me becomes on the spot a medium for the latest
full-blown accounts of a murder, or a laugh, or a swindle, perhaps, more
frequently, a flirtation! I am a bad sleeper', she adds, 'I think my
brain is too active, for I always plan out my best scenes at night, and
write them out in the morning without any trouble'. She finds, too,
that driving has a curious effect upon her; the action of the air seems
to stimulate her. She dislikes talking, or being talked to, when
driving, but loves to think, and to watch the lovely variations of the
world around her, and often comes home filled with fresh ideas, scenes,
and conversations, which she scribbles down without even waiting to
throw off her furs. Asking her how she goes to work about her plot, she
answers with a reproachful little laugh--'That is unkind! You know I
never _have_ a plot really, not the _bona fide_ plot one looks for in a
novel. An idea comes to me, or I to it', she says, airily, 'a scene--a
situation--a young man, a young woman, and on that mental hint I
begin to build', but the question naturally arises, she must make a
beginning? 'Indeed, no', she replies; 'it has frequently happened to me
that I have written the last chapter first, and so, as it were, worked
backwards'.

'Phyllis' was the young author's first work. It was written before she
was nineteen, and was read by Mr. James Payn, who accepted it for
Messrs. Smith Elder & Co.

Mrs. Hungerford is the daughter of the late Rev. Canon Hamilton, rector
and vicar choral of St. Faughnan's cathedral in Ross Carberry, co.
Cork, one of the oldest churches in Ireland. Her grandfather was John
Hamilton, of Vesington, Dunboyne, a property thirteen miles out of
Dublin. The family is very old, very distinguished, and came over from
Scotland to Ireland in the reign of James I.

Most of her family are in the army; but of literary talent, she
remarks, it has b