The earliest and the best known of Miss Aguilar's novels is 'Home Influence,' which rapidly passed through thirty editions, and is still a favorite book with young girls. There is little incident in the story, which is the history of the development of character in a household of six or seven young persons of very different endowments and tendencies. It was the fashion of the day to be didactic, and Mrs. Hamilton, from whom the "home influence" radiates, seems to the modern reader somewhat inclined to preach, in season and out of season. But the story is interesting, and the characters are distinctly individualized, while at least one episode is dramatically treated. 'The Mother's Recompense' is a sequel to 'Home Influence,' wherein the further fortunes of the Hamilton family are so set forth that the wordly-minded reader is driven to the inference that the brilliant marriages of her children are a sensible part of Mrs. Hamilton's "recompense." The story is vividly and agreeably told. Of a different order is 'The Days of Bruce,' a historic romance of the late thirteenth century, which is less historic than romantic, and in whose mirror the rugged chieftain would hardly recognize his angularities. 'The Vale of Cedars' is a historic tale of the persecution of the Jews in Spain under the Inquisition. It is told with intense feeling, with much imagination, and with a strong love of local color. It is said that family traditions are woven into the story. This book, as well as 'Home Influence,' had a wide popularity in a German version. In reading Grace Aguilar it is not easy to believe her the contemporary of Currer Bell and George Eliot. Both her manner and her method are earlier. Her lengthy and artificial periods, the rounded and decorative sentences that she puts into the mouths of her characters under the extremest pressure of emotion or suffering, the italics, the sentimentalities, are of another age than the sinewy English and hard sense of 'Jane Eyre' or 'Adam Bede.' Doubtless her peculiar, sheltered training, her delicate health, and a luxuriant imagination that had seldom been measured against the realities of life, account for the old-fashioned air of her work. But however antiquated their form may become, the substance of all her tales is sweet and sound, their charm for young girls is abiding, their atmosphere is pure, and the spirit that inspires them is touched only to fine issues. The citation from 'The Days of Bruce' illustrates her narrative style; that from 'Woman's Friendship' her habit of disquisition; and the passage from 'Home Influence' her rendering of conversation. THE GREATNESS OF FRIENDSHIP From 'Woman's Friendship'