author's mind since she was a child staying at the charming old house in Suffolk where her aunt lives, which is fully described in the story under the name of "Mondisfield". Speaking of her capacity for heroworship, she says:

"After a course of old Roman heroes, I became a devotee of Oliver Cromwell, and the Cromwell worship was much aided by visits to kinsfolk living in an old Suffolk hall-the 'Mondisfield' of In the Golden Days. Charles Lamb says that 'nothing fills a child's mind like a large old mansion peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the county and justices of the quorum'; and undoubtedly I owe much to that quaint old house, with its hall and musicians' gallery, its hiding-places, its old walled garden, its moat, and its park with the 'stews' in which the abbots of St. Edmondsbury loved in days of yore to fish. . . . Unable as yet to write with any speed or comfort, I had plenty of stories simmering in my brain, and long before the plot of In the Golden Days developed itself, I used to play in the old minstrels' gallery at a game in which a yielding and over-submissive younger brother was tyrannised over by an elder brother and guardian. The characters were perfectly real to me, but it was only when visiting 'Mondisfield' that I cared to play with them. Years after, when We Two was finished, and I was vainly trying to become interested in another story, it chanced that I was staying at the old Suffolk hall. There were long, quiet mornings, and for a study a big, old panelled room hung round

with family portraits, and there was a steady table for my typewriter, but somehow the new story would not 'work'; I grew to hate it. One day, while pacing up and down beside the bowling-green, the two brothers, who had been the hero and the villain of my childish game, suddenly returned like old familiar friends. It was borne in upon me that I must write their story, which bit by bit unfolded itself. With great joy I for ever forsook that modern story which would not 'work,' hunted up all the old records and histories which the house could furnish, and when the plot was completed hurried off to the reading-room of the British Museum to study the time of Charles II. and the history of the Rye House Plot."

In April, 1885, when the book came out she sent a copy to her aunt, Mrs. Warner Bromley, at Badmondisfield, saying:

"I am sending you and Uncle Warner a copy of my new story, and hope you will approve of 'Mondisfield Hall' in the 'Golden Days'! It has been a great pleasure to me to write about it and to walk about the dear old place in imagination."

Of Mary Denham, the heroine-and one of the most delightful heroines in fiction-she wrote some years after the book came out :

Why do you say that Mary Denham is ideal, and an ideal not to be met with in real life? It is a charge that has been brought against me before. And yet I know more than one woman whose love has been essentially the same as hers. Don't you think that

love (not the selfishness which often usurps the name) has the power to bring out the ideal side in the character of both men and women, if only we have the will to think and do always such things as be rightful'? And, after all, when we say 'ideal,' what is it but the 'real'-the true, best side of the nature-the part that will last."

In May, 1885, she wrote to Miss Gurney :

"In the Golden Days was in its second edition within three weeks and is doing well. I shall look forward to your critique when you have read it, as you know I always value private ones far more than public, and think them more truthful and useful. H. and I are going to meet the Chinese ambassador and his wife this afternoon; we have been getting up some part-songs in his honour. I think it will be rather fun."

:

There were many "At Homes" and other claims of society for Miss Bayly at Eastbourne, but she was very quiet and retiring-a "lion" that could not roar to order as she once wrote when on a round of visits, "I get tired of prancing about as lioness! and always feel such a tame one!” She felt her shyness a great deal, and wrote to a friend: "What wouldn't I give for your power of talking! but I was born to be a listener, and never could manage general conversation though now and then enjoying a tête-à-tête".

She certainly was the most appreciative and sympathetic of listeners, with such a keen sense of humour that it was the greatest pleasure to tell her a joke.

She had a very low, sweet voice and never could make deaf people hear, but many agreed with an old gentleman of her acquaintance who used to say: I can't hear what Edna Lyall says, but I do like to make her laugh!" She would shake with laughter in the most satisfactory way to her entertainer! The want of humour in her books has often been remarked, and it is a singular fact that she did not tell a funny thing in a funny way, though full of the saving grace of humour itself, and this was often an immense help to her and her friends in times of sickness and trouble.

To counterbalance the elation that the success of her books might at this time have been giving the author, came rumours of the gossip which so hurt her and all who cared for her. Amongst others, Mr. Buxton Moorish wrote to her in reference to Donovan, which had been refused by a book club in which he was interested, on the plea that the author was an atheist and a follower of Mr. Bradlaugh, reputed to be the real hero of the novel. The following is her answer to

him :

"DEAR SIR,

"6 COLLEGE ROAD, EASTBOURNE, "25th February, 1886.

"Thank you very much for kindly giving me an opportunity of contradicting the slander as to my personal belief. Curiously enough, the very same story was brought to my notice last week at an 'At Home' in London, and I can't imagine from whom it can have originated. I am not an Atheist, but a

member of the Church of England. I have never sat down to write without asking God's help, and whatever is good in my books is solely due to Him.

"I shall be very grateful if you will contradict the story, for I confess it has pained me. Not that it matters much what people think of me individually, but it seems a little hard that what is false should be interfering with the influence of the books. I do not intend Raeburn for Mr. Bradlaugh; none of the characters are meant for photographs of living people, but I know Mr. Brad laugh personally, and quite admit that the history of Raeburn's persecutions and even the broad outlines of the character were to a great degree suggested to me by the study of his life. The Secularists consider Raeburn to be a life-like portrait of their leader; to my mind he is what Mr. Bradlaugh might have been had the circumstances of his life been less hard. Any one who reads the Biography of Charles Bradlaugh, published by Remington & Co., will see that Raeburn had in comparison an easy time. "I was delighted to hear from Mr. Wilson, and value his opinion very much. Thanking you very much for your kind words about my books, "Believe me, dear Sir,

"Yours very truly,

"ADA ELLEN BAYLY, "Edna Lyall"."

The Mr. Wilson here referred to (now Archdeacon Wilson) was then Headmaster of Clifton College, and