may interest you', she says, 'to hear that my
husband was at the same school as Mr. Rider Haggard. I remember when we
were all much younger than we are now, the two boys came over for their
holidays to Cahirmore, and one day in my old home "Milleen" we all went
down to the kitchen to cast bullets. We little thought then that the
quiet, shy schoolboy, was destined to be the author of "King Solomon's
Mines"'.

Nothing less than a genius is Mrs. Hungerford at gardening. Her dress
protected by a pretty holland apron, her hands encased in brown leather
gloves, she digs and delves. Followed by many children, each armed with
one of 'mother's own' implements--for she has her own little spade
and hoe, and rake, and trowel, and fork--she plants her own seeds,
and pricks her own seedlings, prunes, grafts, and watches with the
deepest eagerness to see them grow. In springtime, her interest is
alike divided between the opening buds of her daffodils, and the
breaking of the eggs of the first little chickens, for she has a fine
poultry yard too, and is very successful in her management of it. She
is full of vitality, and is the pivot on which every member of the
house turns. Blessed with an adoring husband, and healthy, handsome,
obedient children, who come to her for everything and tell her
anything, her life seems idyllic.

'Now and then', she remarks laughing, 'I really have great difficulty
in securing two quiet hours for my work'; but everything is done in
such method and order, the writing included, there is little wonder
that so much is got through. It is a full, happy, complete life. 'I
think', she adds, 'my one great dread and anxiety is a review. I never
yet have got over my terror of it, and as each one arrives, I tremble
and quake afresh ere reading'.

_April's Lady_ is one of the author's lately published works. It is in
the three volumes, and ran previously as a serial in _Belgravia_. _Lady
Patty_, a society sketch drawn from life, has a most favourable
reception from the critics and public alike, but in her last novel,
very cleverly entitled _Nor Wife Nor Maid_, Mrs. Hungerford is to be
seen, or rather read, at her best. This charming book, so full of
pathos, so replete with tenderness, ran into a second edition in about
ten days. In it the author has taken somewhat of a departure from her
usual lively style. Here she has indeed given 'sorrow words'. The third
volume is so especially powerful and dramatic, that it ke