The close of _The Legacy_, where Letty Breen asks herself: “Am _I_ a good woman--a bad woman?” and then answers “I do not know,” clearly foreshadowed _The Rise of Jennie Cushing_, which, since its presentation in motion pictures with Elsie Ferguson in the title rôle, will be in its main outlines familiar to more people than any other story of Mrs. Watts’s, not even excepting _Nathan Burke_. It is a pity that the film representation twists the conclusion of the tale so as to affix the conventional happy ending. Not the inevitable happy ending--none can object to a happy ending where it is inevitable, nor desire another; it is where an unhappy or neutral ending is inevitable that we resent anything else being foisted upon us. And the true ending, the book ending, of _The Rise of Jennie Cushing_ is neutral. It could not be otherwise. There is in Jennie Cushing, built up by her solid will and fortified by her experience, a force sufficiently great to neutralize her love for Don and save her from herself. _The Rise of Jennie Cushing_ is the most dramatic, the most artistic, and will be the most enduring of Mrs. Watts’s books. It is without any question a really great novel and both in its conception and its execution it would reflect luster upon any name in American literature and upon the literature of any land on earth. The popularity of _Nathan Burke_, with its richness of detail, its warmth of feeling, its lively narration and its distinctly good and distinctly bad characters, is natural and to be expected. Any one who likes Dickens will revel in _Nathan Burke_. The popularity of _The Legacy_ is partly attributable to the fact that it followed _Nathan Burke_. But the popularity of _Jennie Cushing_ represents the fresh and admiring discovery of Mrs. Watts by an audience in large part different from that she had acquired with her earlier books. It was a popularity wholly earned by _Jennie Cushing_ and not a “carry-over” from a preceding book, as in the case of _The Legacy_. That it was earned by the merit of the book itself is clear enough from this fact: In the case of _Nathan Burke_ and _The Legacy_ the reprintings fell within three or four months; the books sold off quickly. But _Jennie Cushing_ was published in October, reprinted in November--and the next reprinting was the following June! This was not a book of ephemeral success and made its way slowly by sheer power.