The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-24
NoOels Not To Be Neglected

1 ever lamented. This, her longest work | will show that famous as her Little Clti- zens" and Little Aliens has made her | that fame was but a moiety of what the years would have brought her
 She possessed to the fullest degree that rarest power to create real personalities, to build plots that hold the readers in- terest taut to the last page. She had a humor that flashed and sparkled. but that never burned or blistered, All that ever fell from her pen was warm with human sympathy. Any one who mad ever met her will not soon forget her eager manner, her ready tongue, her brilliant Irish face, her quick joy in life and all the goods that life laid at her feet.
 The plot of the last novel from this fla cile pen, so soon laid to it's eternal rest is not out of the ordinary, but it is filled in with novel incidents and life like char acters.
 The sweet simplicity of true nobility $ the motive of the whole and it's whole may be summed up thus: The simplest, the truest is the best. Dot Forbes has lived almost all her IS years in the com panionship of a loving mother and father, she has been reared in wealth that knows no ostentation. She has had no intimate friends. she has never known the board ing school, she knows only that associa-
 
 have brought to their luxurious home, she has no acquaintances except the youth Of the village with these she attended the "public" and read the Vaedictory at the "high.'
 Her home is "the House." a most new and comfortable structure, with every thing imaginable to enhance the joy of living and to meet every emergency save a hospital annex and operating room. I7nrhac rnIIl1 find it in her soul to invite sickness or ac- cident or death by fitting for the unwel- come visitors such tempting quarters The House" is the object of Mrs. Forbes deepest love and adoration, later 1t Is 10 keep her from an ocean voyage, and stiil
 later it is to lose it's utmost importance when thrown in the balance against hus- band and child Mrs. Forbes has mould ed Dots manners. Mrs. Forbes who was a Palmer"
 What delicious play is made upon that fast: MT Forbes relating the short and happily uneventful life of Dot to his Eng fish guest tells him: She's a Palmer, you know, Ms Forbes is'-as who would say, The blood of all the Towards flows in these veinsr" When Dot Is sadly amaz- ed to learn that in being her natural sweet self with the simple English cap tain she has entertained an Earl unaware the father says: T didn't tell you because I was afraid that you'd do different if you knew. You can't behave better than you always do, and I don't want to see you any different; just your ordinary every day ways are good enough for any body. Of course mothers all right-moth- CTS a Palmer" After all where on earth's surface is to be found more self satisfied, more overweening, more conse- quential pride of family than is to be found in the heart and the manner of the village grandee?
 Later, when an acquaintance Of six weeks has blossomed into love and marriage, when Dot Forbes of Edge combe, Conn, has become the Countess of Glanmoran, the Earl is to wonder how his American wife acquired the dainty grace and reserve of manner, a slow precision of speech and a tender, low voiced intonation,' unless, con- jures the Earl, with a tendor adoring smile, 1t had to do with the Palmer blood" Oh, that Palmer blood; 1t is great! The young Earl Is splendidly drawn, simple of heart any American mountaineer, full of ready sympathy | for all with whom he comes in touch | full of an eager restlessness that has taken him twice around the world and I into all of its hooks and corners through South African wars, into vari- ous lands to study industries that may be transplanted to his ancestral acres to there benefit his Irish peasantry; new sort of an earl for literature, but doubtless nearer to reality than the traversty that works its way into novels and yellow sheets.
 Such a belted earl, gentle. honorabl q devoted husband and father, a fault less friend, Dot had married some years agone; he was to her the sacred manifestation of the divine power" but Dot, for the first time in her life, knew what 1t was to be restless. to be dis satisfied with what life had to offer her: This was never the life l ex- pected," she cries to her father, her very present help in time of trouble or happiness. You remember how used to dream about having some big mission in the world and now it's dwindled to this" To being the wife of an earl. the mother of q darling, dimpled viscount. the mlstres of d pal ace and a half a county of farm, mo un- tain and villages. Yet Dot longed for more she longed to make the world about her better, to alleviate some of the suffering that she saw at her doors. where her own peasants were stricken down by the hard winds of poverty and diversity There spoke the nobility of soul that fitted her to adorn even a title created in 1465.
 John Forbes, the able financier, the truest type of the best self made Amer ican, the father of Dot, Is the real hero cf the book. He does not vaunt or hide the story of a day of his life, he has no need to do the latter. He has stored up experiences and brings out knowl- edge of men and matters at need. 1t was his experience as sheriff in his home county for 10 years that enabled him to lay hands at once on the thief In high places, the would be murderer in the castle, the dastardly trick of the Honorable John," who tried to use his dead wife's child to ruin his broth CTS home" It was the giant strength of his hands inured to honest labor that enabled him to save the life of his daughter when the Honorable John, brother to the Earl, allowed the grooms to mount her upon the vicious horse Thunderbolt. It was his vast but quiet influence in the financial world that enabled him to save to the rightful heirs the immense income from the estate that John Gresham was defect ing to his own bank account. His wis dom, his forthrightness, his true nobil- ity of soul and soundness of heart and of judgment made him the equal of any earl or any man of noble birth and these. when right minded. gladly claimed the American as equal or hailed him as superior.
 Not only Is the devil not so black as he's painted, but if the paint were scratched off be sure there would show beneath the blackness many an uD- | healed wound and sore spot No one devil or human, Is evil unless hurt, oi | harm. pain, or paucity, injustice ol | cruelty (mayhap of chance) has made | him so. Thus the Honorable John. the villain of the story has his Qrieya nee