_First thirteen published by Henry Holt & Company, New York; others by Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York._ CHAPTER XXVI AMELIA E. BARR On March 17, 1918, the author of this book had the pleasure, as editor of _Books and the Book World_ of _The Sun_, New York, of printing what is certainly the best account extant of Amelia E. Barr within a reasonable length. Although the article was unsigned it was the work of Mr. A. Elwood Corning, who had been a neighbor of Mrs. Barr at Richmond Hill, Long Island, New York. It was based upon a personal visit and interview. This chapter is really nothing more than a reprint of Mr. Corning’s article with a few changes, particularly those necessitated by Mrs. Barr’s death on March 10, 1919, at her Richmond Hill home. To Mr. Corning, then, the credit of this chapter. Amelia E. Barr struck the popular taste more than thirty years ago with her _Bow of Orange Ribbon_. She was one of the most prolific of present-day writers of fiction. Her last completed novel, _The Paper Cap_, published in the fall of 1918, brought the number of her books up to over seventy, and this does not include hundreds of short stories, a poem a week for _fourteen years_, written for Bonner’s _Ledger_, or the numerous newspaper articles, essays and verses of the first fourteen years of her literary life. On March 29, 1918, Mrs. Barr entered her eighty-eighth year. In the preceding twelve months she had published three books, and shortly before her eighty-seventh birthday (or the birthday which made her eighty-seven years old!) she completed a fourth in manuscript! This was _The Paper Cap_, the scenes of which are laid in Yorkshire, England, where the novelist spent a part of her childhood. Mrs. Barr thought it one of the best stories she had written. The paper cap of the title is that of the workingman and the story centers around his fight for the suffrage. It was really a contest between the hand loom and the power loom. It was about 4 in the afternoon when Mr. Corning reached Mrs. Barr’s study on the visit which preceded the preparation of his article. Mrs. Barr had been writing since 7 that morning, with only a brief intermission for luncheon, and was not feeling, she declared, so well as usual. “This is one of mamma’s blue Mondays,” said her daughter. But after she had begun to discuss current events, some incidents of her early life in Texas and above all the war Mrs. Barr became animated. She was an interesting and enthusiastic talker with positive views, a power of unusually apt expression and a mind keenly alert. Convinced of a fact, she uttered it with passionate force.