In the rest of the population of Orr's Island the reader cannot fail to take a great interest, with but two exceptions. These are Moses, the hero of the novel, and Sally Kittredge, who, in the end, marries him. But "Cap'n" Kittredge and his wife, Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey, and Zephaniah Pennel, are incomparably good. Each affords matter enough for a long dissertation on New England and human character. Miss Roxy, especially, is the typical old maid of Yankee-land, and is so thoroughly lovable, in spite of her idiom, her crusty manners, and her eccentricities, that the only wonder is that she should have been allowed to remain single. But the same wonder is often expressed, in actual life, in regard to old maids superior to Miss Roxy in education, accomplishments, and beauty, and her equals in vital self-sacrifice and tenderness of heart. We have referred to Moses as a failure, but in this he is no worse than Mrs. Stowe's other heroes. They are all unworthy of the women they love; and the early death of Mara, in this novel, though very pathetic, is felt by every male reader to be better than a long married life with Moses. The latter is "made happy" in the end with Sally Kittredge. Mrs. Stowe does not seem conscious of the intense and bitter irony of the last scenes. She conveys the misanthropy of Swift without feeling or knowing it. In style, "The Pearl of Orr's Island" ranks with the best narratives in American literature. Though different from the style of Irving and Hawthorne, it shows an equal mastery of English in expressing, not only facts, events, and thoughts, but their very spirit and atmosphere. It is the exact mirror of the author's mind and character. It is fresh, simple, fluent, vigorous, flexible, never dazzling away attention from what it represents by the intrusion of verbal felicities which are pleasing apart from the vivid conceptions they attempt to convey. The uncritical reader is unconscious of its excellence because it is so excellent,--that is, because it is so entirely subordinate to the matter which it is the instrument of expressing. At times, however, the singular interest of the things described must impress the dullest reader with the fact that the author possesses uncommon powers of description. The burial of James Lincoln, the adventure of little Mara and Moses on the open sea, the night-visit which Mara makes to the rendezvous of the outlaws, and the incidents which immediately precede Mara's death, are pictured with such vividness, earnestness, and fidelity, that nobody can fail to feel the strange magic communicated to common words when they are the "nimble servitors" of genius and passion. In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual perception,--in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and sentiment,--and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,--"The Pearl of