Her holiday came none too soon for she was quite over-tired, and when attacked once more by influenza became really ill and suffered a good deal from earache and neuralgia. However, nothing daunted, she resolved to take the long journey to the Lakes on the day arranged, and with strict injunctions from the doctor to travel as an invalid and go to bed directly she arrived, she set off with the others and "stood the fourteen hours grandly". With the rest and change she soon got well and comparatively strong again, and started on what she called her "Tour in the Provinces" before settling down again to work, hoping after the long holiday to get on better with the story which she evidently felt was not "going," for referring to it at this time she says:— "Some one told me yesterday a quaint old saying which seemed to me rather a good tonic for days. when one has no heart for one's work: All discouragement comes from the devil'. If that is true, it is just a call to battle." Wayfaring Men came out in one volume in October and started well. She writes of an amusing episode in connection with the book soon after. "Two large boxes of Bath-buns and Bath-olivers have just arrived from Mr. Fortt, the Milsom Street confectioner, to the children's delight. It seems that he had noticed in Wayfaring Men that Ivy ran out during rehearsal 'to buy Bath-buns at Fortt's,' and so begged me to accept them! I feel as if I ought to send them to Miss Mackenzie, because it was her bag of buns at one of the Liverpool rehearsals that made me think of it!" * ·- At the end of the year she writes : 'The whole family has dispersed to three different parties and I feel like Cinderella. However, thanks to my stylograph, I can go on with my novel and finish a duel scene near Crosthwaite." In the Christmas number of The Lady's Realm she published some verses which had been written some time before. As many may not have seen them, this chapter may fitly conclude with them. THE CRITIC. It was only a picture: rippling stream, A trout stream swirling swiftly on, And a background of sunset rosy red. And the critic frowned-" This painter's art Is bad and surely bad his heart!" But the picture gladdened a sick man's gloom, It was only a ballad, blithe and gay, A simple air, a sweet refrain; No morbid thought, no wild despair, And the critic scoffed-" 'Tis out of date; This tuneful sweetness palls of late!" It was only a play: a Christmas piece, -EDNA LYALL. CHAPTER X. WAR-1898-1900. Reading Societies-Hope the Hermit-Italy-Illness-Mr. J. J. Green -Dolgelly-Mr. Walford-Mr. C. E. Maurice-Duelling and war- -The Peace Crusade-Friendship-Mr. Ruskin-The War The play In Spite of All-Mr. Homewood's account of it. CHAPTER X. WAR-1898-1900. "The day is not so far off as men dream when duelling and war will be looked on as brutalities of a bygone time, when the beast in man was scarce tamed."-Hope the Hermit. THERE are comparatively few letters written by Edna Lyall in the year 1898, as she was taken very seriously ill in the spring. In January, when, as usual, sending flowers to Mrs. Bonner, she refers to the book then in hand. "Just now I am very busy working away at the last part of Hope the Hermit, while the first is running as a serial. This is to me a most dreadful process, and I have almost made up my mind to give up serial publication. It is so horrid to feel driven, and results, I fear, in bad work." To another friend whom she had invited to join a Reading Society, of which she was President, she wrote at this time: "As to the Reading Society, I quite understand your feeling, and indeed these rules with their 10.30 P.M. time limit and Sunday holiday are specially awkward for you. I always tout a little for new members at the beginning of the year, as part |