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brought to mind, in the hero, an acquaintance of mine. In fact almost every natural story reminds one of someone he knows. In my brothers "Royal Laugorith," he repeated the experience of an Ohio politician so closely, I called his attention to it. He replied that it is impossible to tell a story, true to life without repeating an actual experience. His pair of "Patient Lovers," tells the story of two persons of my acquaintance, which he knew nothing about. In the case I knew, the patient lover became impatient, and after a few years wait, married an old sweetheart--a widow. The charm of your short sketches is they are true to life. "Trade Winds" is so true to what has happed time and again, not only in the crushing out of a small dealer, but in the drowning of the helpful daughter, and the picture of the livery stable keeper who took her riding on the fatal afternoon is perfect. The "square red-brick house" far out on Clark street with a "side porch where the servants whipped eggs," might be my cousins house far out Broad street in Columbus--once a farm house before the city swallowed it. The apples pealed on the side porch, of an August afternoon for a six o' clock supper, with warm short biscuit were fit for the gods.

H