_Mother_ was followed by _The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne_, the story of a great-hearted woman who brought her fresh and honest ideals into the heart of a narrow Western city. Those who read it may excusably gasp to hear that it was written in six weeks on an order from the _Woman’s Home Companion_. _Poor Dear Margaret Kirby_, collected short stories, was the third book, appearing in the spring of 1913. _The Treasure_ had had serial publication in the _Saturday Evening Post_. _Saturday’s Child_ preceded it. And then Mrs. Norris made her first great success with a full length novel which many will consider the biggest book she has done. It was _The Story of Julia Page_, the first of three novels which have been called Mrs. Norris’s trilogy of American womanhood. The others are _The Heart of Rachael_ and _Martie, the Unconquered_. Between these last two appeared her short novel, _Undertow_, dealing with two young married spendthrifts. _Josselyn’s Wife_, “the story of a woman’s faith,” tells of a sweet, simple girl, Ellen Latimer, transported by a whirlwind marriage to Gibbs Josselyn from the humdrum existence of a small country town to the luxuries of the wealthy social life of New York. There is a time when the young second wife of Gibbs Josselyn’s father threatens to break up the happiness of the younger Josselyn and Ellen, for Gibbs succumbs readily to her undeniable fascination. Then comes the crash. Through the long agony of a murder trial it is the wife he has neglected who alone upholds him. It is her faith that wins and that brings him at last to an understanding of his egotistical folly. Mrs. Norris is not yet at the height and fullness of her powers, as well as can be judged contemporaneously. It is easy enough to look back on the completed work of a writer’s lifetime and say, “Here he reached his apex, here he began to decline, here he rose again for an hour.” But to estimate the present and relate it tentatively to the future is very much harder. _Mother_ was one “peak” in the graph of Mrs. Norris’s progress, _The Story of Julia Page_ was another and a higher, _Josselyn’s Wife_ is at least as high. There is every prospect that in the active and happy years we may hope are ahead of her, Kathleen Norris will excel the impressive novels she has already given us. BOOKS BY KATHLEEN NORRIS _Mother_, 1911. _The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne_, 1912. _Poor Dear Margaret Kirby_, 1913. _Saturday’s Child_, 1914. _The Treasure_, 1915. _The Story of Julia Page_, 1915. _The Heart of Rachael_, 1916. _Undertow_, 1917. _Martie, the Unconquered_, 1917. _Josselyn’s Wife_, 1918. _Sisters_, 1919. _Harriet and the Piper_, 1920. _The Beloved Woman_, 1921. _Lucretia Lombard_, 1922. _Certain People of Importance_, 1922. _These novels by Mrs. Norris are published by Doubleday, Page & Company, New York._ CHAPTER VII MARGARET DELAND