scrap of news from camp or hospital, these articles, hasty, faulty, often extravagant in fancy and diction, but yet written in the spirit of patriotism and with an honest desire to tell the truth, were read with passionate interest.
Five years later, she gained her second popular triumph: she published "Little Women." This story—for novel it was not—was at once received into wide favor, and is still pre-eminently the book of the American girl. Its charm lies in the reality of its incidents, the bright every-day character of its four heroines and their friends, and the breezy spirit with which the simple narrative is given. An ill-natured critic might descant upon the occasional hasty workmanship, but the best answer to all carping is the unflagging interest with which our young ladies still discuss the question, whether or not Jo should have married Laurie. Most of them, it may be added, think she should; indeed, the amiable Bhaer has scarcely met with the favor he deserves.
Miss Alcott is a busy and voluminous writer. Her "Eight Cousins," "Rose in Bloom," "Under the Lilacs," "Old-fashioned Girl," "Jack and Jill," together with "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag Series," and several volumes of short stories, are now established favorites, and a new story appearing above her signature in one of the magazines creates a pleasant stir among the younger members of many households, and in some of the older ones, too. Several hundred thousand copies of her works have been sold in America, and nearly as many more in England and other European countries. A translation of "Little Women" was published not long ago in a children's magazine in Paris, under the title of Les Quatre Filles du Docteur Marsch (The Four Daughters of Dr. March). It included, however, only the first volume, with an added chapter in which the interesting sisters are suitably pro-
