“Though _Mrs. Wiggs_ has made its author famous,” says Margaret Anderson, “_Mr. Opp_ is Mrs. Rice’s finest piece of work. In the hero of this story, which is a story of Dickensian humor and robustness, we mark a real and very big development--a development, moreover, which is not a thing of violence but proceeds along the lines of the man’s peculiar nature. “Mrs. Wiggs is fixed, the same at the end of the book as at the opening; but Mr. Opp grows, and the interest of the reader increases with his growth. The story has not been read as _Mrs. Wiggs_ was read, but for imagination, for spirituality, and even for humor, it remains the better book. “It is, indeed, her most distinct success, for _Lovey Mary_ followed _Mrs. Wiggs_ in general character, while _Sandy_, though wholesome, engaging, and charged to the full with Mrs. Rice’s humor, is not of an equal inspiration. Her story of _Billy-Goat Hill_ shows some excellent and delicate work, the figures of ‘Miss Lady’ and the Doctor recalling those of Annie and her husband in _David Copperfield_, while Connie and Noah Wicker are done with delightful vim and gayety. “In _The Honorable Percival_ Mrs. Rice has aimed deliberately at the light, the frothy, the effect of touch-and-go, yet here we note especially an increase in her art. The thing is light and sure; it is froth but froth well-made and inviting; it does touch and go, but it touches with a spark and goes vividly. “It is needless, however, to criticise her stories individually. What we must note of her work is this: It meets the great human need of cheer, it satisfies a great human desire with its wholesome milk of kindness. To make many nations laugh and laugh innocently; to bring entertainment to the sickbed and army trench and throne room and schoolroom; and to the million common houses of a million common people--this is the mission of her books and this their finest achievement.” Wise and honest words, these, of Margaret Steele Anderson’s. What she has said so well we shall not attempt to better. We shall agree whole-heartedly with her that the best praise was given Alice Hegan Rice “by a very wise old man, who spoke for a great host of readers when he said: “‘Madam, I salute you! You have done the world a service. You have cheered us, you have made us laugh happily and with courage.’” BOOKS BY ALICE HEGAN RICE _Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch_, 1901. _Lovey Mary_, 1903. _Sandy_, 1905. _Captain June_, 1907. _Mr. Opp_, 1909. _A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill_, 1912. _The Honorable Percival._ _Calvary Alley_, 1917. _Miss Mink’s Soldier and Other Stories_, 1918. _Quin_, 1921. _Published by the Century Company, New York._ CHAPTER XXVIII ALICE DUER MILLER