In most of her books Mrs. Ewing traces the progress of children from youth to manhood and gives us an insight into the development of their character. Thus in _Lob Lie by the Fire_, for example, we have the foundling christened John Broom; we see him adopted by Miss Betty and Miss Kitty in spite of the warnings of the cautious lawyer, but under the guidance of the good clergyman who, while feeling he may be encouraging them in grave indiscretion, feels impelled to say, “I do know that he has a Father Whose image is also to be found in His children—not quite effaced in any of them—and Whose care of this one will last when yours may seem to have been in vain.” We journey with him in all his difficult training; we are with him in his chivalrous devotion to McAlister, the Highlander, whose honour he saves and whose last hour he comforts. We watch him, as the beneficent “brownie” in his village home, as he brings luck to Lingborough, and works for others. In this tale, as in so many others, we feel that sustained personal interest which belongs to a biography. But it is in connection with _The Story of a Short Life_ that interest has recently been rekindled in Mrs. Ewing in many quarters, on account of the remarkable development of the “Guild of the Brave Poor Things,” which has sprung into existence as the direct outcome of this tale. As Sir Walter Besant built the “People’s Palace” by the picture painted in his novel, so Mrs. Ewing has done an equally important work, though not herself permitted to live to see the results of her suggestions. In the work of this guild gatherings of afflicted people—blind, deaf, paralysed, or otherwise incapacitated for the full activity of ordinary life and work—are held at regular intervals in London and other centres. Classes suitable to their varied needs are conducted; companies of the brave who suffer, often with infinite heroism, are inspirited by being assembled for bright meetings, in which all that the suggestion of the atmosphere and colour of military habit can impart, is used to make prominent the fact that the members are as truly soldiers as the veterans of the “tented field,” that the “courage to bear and the courage to dare are really one and the same.” Thus the schoolrooms are decked with banners, while the roll-call of members and the singing of the tug-of-war hymn (Bishop Heber’s “The Son of God goes forth to war”) are looked forward to eagerly by the sufferers, young and old, who are banded together in this comradeship of affliction. It is almost startling to find walls emblazoned with the motto “_Lætus sorte meâ_,” and to learn that many people, innocent of any language but their mother-tongue, have become intelligently proud of the words which bid them be happy in their lot.[1]