Mr. Marshall began _The Squire's Daughter_ as a long "short story," starting with what is now Chapter XII, _Food and Raiment_. He fell in love with his characters, as many a novelist has done, and expanded the narrative. Then he wrote _The Eldest Son_, which is the best of the four books. Yet it was not a success in England, and at present both _The Squire's Daughter_ and _The Eldest Son_ are out of print in their home country; they are, however, having a daily-increasing circulation in America, which is bound to resurrect them in Great Britain. For that matter most of Mr. Marshall's novels are more widely known and certainly more appreciated in the United States than in the land of their nativity. In _The Honour of the Clintons_, the author's intention was to "take up the old Squire, see what all his generations of gentility and honour, and all his conviction that he is of superior clay, amount to when he is touched with personal disgrace." He discovered, as Dickens must have discovered in writing the _Pickwick Papers_, that his hero turned out rather better than he thought he would. This third book in the series was written under inspiration, completed in six weeks, and at the time came almost as near satisfying the author as it always has satisfied me. But a friend, with true English candour, said to him, "All the ingredients of the cake are there, but the cake hasn't risen." Anyhow, the Squire rose, whether the cake did or not. The final novel in the Clinton family, _The Old Order Changeth_, shows the effect produced on both Rank and Riches by the Great War. Mr. Marshall began this story with many misgivings, and it is still not one of his favourites, chiefly because "there are so many beastly people in it." But so long as I live it will hold a secure place in my heart, for this is the first work of the author's that I saw. Indeed I had never heard of him until I picked up _The Old Order Changeth_. I started to read it with no conception of the keen delight in store; after finishing it, I wrote to the publishers, "Who on earth is Archibald Marshall? There is no one like him in the world. Send me everything he has written." Since that moment of exaltation, I have read and reread the Clinton books, and each time they seem better. To read the Clinton stories is to be a welcome guest in a noble old English country house, to meet and to associate on terms of happy intimacy with delightful, well-bred, clear-minded men and women; to share the outdoor life of healthful sport, and the pleasant conversation around the open fire; to sharpen one's observation of natural scenery in summer and in winter, and in this way to make a permanent addition to one's mental resources; to learn the significance of good manners, tact, modesty, kindly consideration, purity of heart--not by wearisome precepts, but by their flower and fruit in human action. To read these books is not to dodge life, it is to have it more abundantly.