ld combinations of numbers, and we take courage.

But the veteran novel reader finds little variety in incident and
machinery; there are fashions in fiction as in everything else, and the
prevailing "style" of the time is followed apparently without question.

The heroines of an earlier generation differed from those of the
present. They were slender creatures, living on delicate fare, and
fainting at every or no provocation. When these lovely beings died it
was usually of a broken heart, developing into consumption. They were
depicted clad in white and holding flowers, reclining at open windows,
regardless of draughts, and they lectured heart-broken friends and
faithless lovers with a command of language and strength of lung rare in
every-day life. For bringing about some needed explanation sprained
ankles have played a conspicuous part, and a strong-armed hero or
stalwart rival was ready to carry the fair sufferer

"Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through briar,"

to some place of shelter, where friends and reader alike watched the
progress of recovery. Runaway horses have been vastly useful in bringing
matters to a crisis, and in New England stories a fierce bull is always
ready to threaten the life of the heroine.

These casualties were especially the lot of the heroines, but fevers
were open to all without distinction of "sex, race, or color." In the
wanderings of delirium the cleverly-disguised villain betrayed his dark
designs--the self-distrusting lover sighed his woes into the sympathetic
ear of the damsel of whom in his "normal state" he had said--

"'Twere all as one
That I should love some bright particular star
And seek to wed it."

With the modern dissemination of knowledge and of sanitary science, the
former ailments have become less fashionable; there has been a run of
diphtheria, and heart complaints are slaying their thousands.

Athletics are restricted to no sex,--the hero is less frequently called
to rescue his beloved from a watery grave. Indeed, her skill may be
superior to his,--witness Armorel, one of the fairest of modern
creations.

Now and then a leader has appeared,--an inventor,--but the new style is
imitated with no respect for patent right. Jane Eyre was _new_; here was
a heroine with neither wealth nor beauty, and forthwith appeared a long
train of ugly girls, and dark, middle-aged men promising henceforth "to
forswear sack and live cleanly," yet in confidentia