Page:Varia.djvu/108

 96 denunciatory texts. We first surrounded her with the persecutions of the worldly-minded, that her virtues might shine more glaringly in the gloom, and disquisitions on duty be never out of place. Daisy, in "Melbourne House," is an example of a perniciously good child who has the conversion of her family on her hands, and is well aware of the dignity of her position. Her trials and triumphs, her tears and prayers, her sufferings and rewards, fill two portly volumes, and have doubtless inspired many a young reader to set immediately about the correction of her parents' faults. The same lesson is taught with even greater emphasis by a more recent writer, whose works, I am told, are so exceedingly popular that she is not permitted to lay down her pen. Hundreds of letters reach her every year, begging for a new "Elsie" book; and the amiability with which she responds to the demand has resulted in a fair-sized library,—twice as many volumes probably as Sir Walter Scott ever read in the whole course of his childish life.

Now if, as the "Ladies' Home Journal" informs us, "there has been no character in American juvenile fiction who has attained