ful people, with their strongly marked
characteristics, and the rector, Dr. Lavendar, who is one of the most
charming delineations ever drawn, are all known to-day to women readers.
Her best novels follow the lines of her other stories, but there is a
power in The Awakening of Helena Richie and in The Iron Woman not in the
short stories. Read from Old Chester Tales.

IV--STORIES OF SOCIETY AND ITS PROBLEMS

Edith Wharton studied the problems of society in a great city in her The
House of Mirth, drawing a faithful if somewhat painful picture. The
Fruit of the Tree and The Valley of Decision present other phases of
social life. Her books are well planned and well written, with a
noticeably subtle touch. Read from The House of Mirth.

Gertrude Atherton also writes of society's problems, but in quite
another manner. The Aristocrats and Ancestors have a distinctly satiric
flavor. In addition to these she has others in quite another vein, The
Doomswoman, and The Conqueror notably.

John Oliver Hobbes (Mrs. Craigie) has some exquisite little books, read
by few, perhaps, because of their peculiar style. She wrote The School
for Saints, The Herb Moon, and The Flute of Pan. Her problems are rather
involved and somewhat attenuated, but on the whole beautifully done.
Read from The Herb Moon.

V--STORIES OF HUMOR AND PATHOS

Ruth McEnery Stuart's early life was spent in Louisiana, and there she
learned to know the plantation negro at first hand. No one has equaled
her in her presentation of his character, with its dependence and
childlike drollery. Her appreciation of his humor is no less marked
than of his unconscious pathos. Read from A Golden Wedding, Moriah's
Mourning, and The River's Children. In Sonny, one of her loveliest
books, she has taken a poor white as her hero.

Alice Hegan Rice made a large place for herself when she wrote Mrs.
Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. She found that unusual thing, a new setting
for a story, and drew a unique heroine in Mrs. Wiggs. Read from this and
its sequel, Lovey Mary.

Kate Douglas Wiggin (Mrs. Riggs) has several gay stories, a brief series
about Penelope in England and Scotland, and A Cathedral Courtship, quite
as amusing. Her Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is also full of bright
sayings. In The Birds' Christmas Carol she mingles humor and pathos.
Read from Penelope's Progress.

Myra Kelly found in a public school among the poor foreigners of New
York's East Side material for her