In the decade that followed this first book Page gave himself to the writing of short stories and studies of Southern life, but only once or twice did he catch again the magic atmosphere of the earlier tales. _Two Little Confederates_ is exquisite work, but _Elsket_, which followed, was full of inferior elements. Its negro stories, "George Washington's Last Duel" and "P'laski's Tunament," are only good vaudeville--they show but the surface of negro life; "Run to Seed" is pitched almost with shrillness, and "Elsket" and "A Soldier of the Empire," the one dealing with the last of her race, the other with the last of his order, are European sketches a trifle theatrical in spite of their touches of pathos. _Red Rock_ (1898) marks the beginning of Page's second period, the period of long romances. Once before with _On Newfound River_ he had tried the border canvas and he had failed save in certain of his characterizations and detached episodes. Now with _Red Rock_ he set out to write what should stand among his works as _The Grandissimes_ stands among Cable's. Its sub-title, _A Chronicle of Reconstruction_, explains at once its strength and its weakness. Its author approached it as Mrs. Jackson had approached _Ramona_, with a purpose, and, unlike Mrs. Jackson, he accomplished his purpose. The wrongs of the South during the period are made vivid, but at the expense of the novel. The opening pages are perfect. Chapter two with its merry-making at the great plantation, and all its glimpses of traits and scenes peculiarly Southern, leads the reader to feel that he has in his hands at last the great romance of Southern life. There is the background of an ancient wrong. The red stain on the great rock is supposed to be the blood of the first mistress of the plantation murdered there by an Indian; and the haunting picture over the fireplace of the first master who had killed the Indian with his bare hands, then had glared from his portrait until he had become the dominating center of the plantation, is felt to be the dominating center also of the romance as the Bras Coupé episode is the motif of _The Grandissimes_. But one is soon disappointed. The problem dominates the romance; the book is primarily a treatise, a bit of special pleading. It is undoubtedly all true, but one set out to read a romance of the old South. True as its facts may be, from the art side it is full of weaknesses. Leech, the carpet-bagger, and Still, the rascally overseer, are villains of the melodramatic type; they are a dead black in character from first to last. The turning points of the action are accidents, the atmosphere is too often that of _St. Elmo_. When the master is killed in battle the picture of the Indian killer falls to the hearth, and again when Leech is beating to death the wounded heir to the estate it falls upon the assassin as if in vengeance and nearly crushes him. The plot is chaotic. We are led to believe that Blair Cary, the doctor's daughter,