ntances.

Determined to pay what honor I could, I went to Barbizon, to find, as
did many others gone for the same sad purpose, that an error in the
notices sent, discovered too late to be rectified, had placed the date
of the funeral a day later than that on which it actually occurred.
Millet rests in the little cemetery at Chailly, across the plain from
Barbizon, near his lifetime friend, Theodore Rousseau, who is buried
there. I will never forget the January day in the village of Barbizon.
Though Millet had little part in the village life, and was known to few,
a sadness, as though the very houses felt that a great man had passed
away, had settled over the place. I sought out a friend who had been
Millet's friend for many years and was with him at the last, and as he
told me of the last sad months, tears fell from his eyes.

CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE.

BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS,

Author of "The Gates Ajar," "A Singular Life," etc.

"THE GATES AJAR" WITH THE CRITICS AND THE PUBLIC.--THE AUTHOR'S FIRST
STUDY.--READING REVIEWS OF ONE'S OWN BOOKS.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH READERS
OF "THE GATES AJAR."

As was said in the last paper, "The Gates Ajar" was written without hope
or expectation of any especial success, and when the happy storm broke
in truth, I was the most astonished girl in North America.

From the day when Mr. Fields's thoughtful note reached the Andover
post-office, that miracle of which we read often in fiction, and
sometimes in literary history, touched the young writer's life; and it
began over again, as a new form of organization.

As I look back upon them, the next few years seem to have been a series
of amazing phantasmagoria. Indeed, at the time, they were scarcely more
substantial. A phantom among phantoms, I was borne along. Incredulous of
the facts, and dubious of my own identity, I whirled through
readjustments of scene, of society, of purposes, of hopes, and now, at
last, of ambitions; and always of hard work, and plenty of it. Really, I
think the gospel of work then, as always, and to all of us, was
salvation from a good deal of nonsense incident to the situation.

I have been told that the American circulation of the book, which has
remained below one hundred thousand, was rather more than that in Great
Britain. Translations, of course, were manifold. The French, the German,
the Dutch, the Italian have been conscientiously sent to the author;
some others, I think, have not. More appli