y have since become. Or, it may be that the
Editor, notwithstanding an occasional stiffness and apparent want of
sympathy, has so well done his work, has understood so well what to give
us and what to keep from us, that the reader's interest is skilfully
fostered from the start. Be this as it may, I have not been able to
resist the temptation to write, myself, a little of this memoir and its
subject, to make a little wider, if I may, the public who have been told
the story of this life. Not that it was an exciting or an eventful one,
though lived in stirring times, but as I have already said, it seems to
have a certain charm which should not be left forgotten in country
garrets or unnoticed in second-hand bookstores. With no further apology
for this review of it, I shall let the book, as far as possible, speak
for itself.

Mary Twining was born in Middleport, Massachusetts, June 27, 1757. Her
father fought with Colonel Washington in the French and Indian War, and
subsequently under General Washington in a later disturbance. Her mother
was a granddaughter of one of the early colonial governors. Mary seems
to have come naturally enough by fine impulses and good breeding.

"It is not," says the conscientious biographer, "from any vain
Partiality for high-sounding names, or any poor Pretense of good blood,
which were most out of place in this our Republic, made so by the Genius
and enduring Fortitude of all classes of Men, that I claim for Mary
Twining stately Lineage, but that when such Accidents fall in the lives
of Human Beings, it is not a thing to make light of, but worthy of study
in its Results. Besides which is General Washington none the less a Good
Soldier in that he is a Gentleman."

I suspect the traditions of a loyal Englishman had not been wholly
eradicated from the mind of this biographer by a few years of plebeian
institutions. With equal truth he goes on, however, to say that what was
"of an Importance swallowing up the Lesser Matter of Lineage and
Station, Richard Twining was an upright and a God-fearing man, and Mary,
his wife, patterned in all things after the Behaviour of her godly
Ancestor." Either Richard or Mary, his wife, must have something
"patterned" after a liberal and occasionally self-willed model, else
whence came the spice of independence in the little Mary's character?
She was an only child, and only children were probably in the middle of
the eighteenth very much what they are in the clo