The manner of the making of the two stories is identical; and so is their peculiar charm. In his preface to his translation of the "Good-for-Nothing," forty years and more ago, Charles Godfrey Leland wrote: "Like a bird, the youthful hero flits along with his music over Austria and Italy--as semi-mysterious in his unpremeditated course, fed by chance, and as pleasing in his artless character"; which is close to being--if for artless we read sophisticated artlessness--an accurate description of the joint journeying of _Monsieur Vifour_ and _Mademoiselle de Belle Isle_. And Leland added: "It is strikingly characteristic of the whole book that it abounds in adroitly-hidden touches of art which produce an effect without betraying effort on the part of the writer. We are willing to declare that we never read a story so light and airy, or one betraying so little labor; but critical study soon tells us _quant' é difficile questa facilità_! All this ease is the grace of a true genius, who makes no false steps and has carefully estimated his own powers." That description fits "The Inn of the Silver Moon" to a hair! In part, it applies only a little less closely to "Myra of the Pines"--in which is much the same gay irresponsibility of motive and of action; the same light touch, so sure that each delicate point is made with a firm clearness; and the same play--save for the jarring note struck by the "pig-man"--of a gently keen and a very subtle humour: that maintains farce on the plane of high comedy by hiding artful contrivance under a seeming artlessness; and that sparklingly crystallizes into turns of phrase so seemingly spontaneous in their accurate appositeness that the look of accident is given to them by their carefully perfected felicity.