BERTHA RUNKLE.
One of the most famous novels of the past few years was "The Helmet of Navarre," and was written, when its author, Bertha Runkle, was a little over twenty years of age. One of the most remarkable facts in this connection is that the authoress had never seen the shores of France, in fact had seldom been beyond the boundaries of New York State. Miss Runkle was born in New Jersey, but in 1888 she and her mother moved to New York City. Her father, Cornelius A. Runkle, a well-known New York lawyer, was for many years counsel for the New York Tribune, and her mother, Lucia Isabella Runkle, had been, previous to her marriage, an editorial writer on the same paper, in fact she was the first American woman to be placed on the staff of a great Metropolitan daily. In 1904 Miss Runkle married Captain Louis H. Bash, United States Army. She is very fond of outdoor life and spends much of her time in such sports as golf, riding, driving and tennis.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
In the little town of Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, one of the most famous literary women, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was born. She was the seventh child of her parents Rev. Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Beecher. Her father was an eminent divine, but her early childhood days were filled with the privations of great poverty. When Harriet Stowe was but five years of age, her mother died and she went to live for a short time with her aunt and grandmother, until Mr. Beecher's second marriage. At twelve years of age she was sent to the school of Mr. John P. Brace, a well-known teacher, where she soon began to show a great love for composition, and one of her essays, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be Proved by the Light of Nature," was considered quite a literary triumph, and won great admiration from her father who was ignorant of its authorship. Her sister Catherine went to Hartford, Connecticut, where her brother was teaching, and decided she would build a female seminary that women might have equal opportunities with men. She raised the money and built the Hartford Female Seminary, and Harriet Beecher at the age of twelve attended her sister Catherine's school. She soon became one of the pupil teachers. Mr. Beecher's fame as a revivalist and brilliant preacher took him to Boston, but his heart was in the temperance work and he longed to go West. When called to Ohio to become president of Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati he accepted, and perhaps we owe to this circumstance Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous book "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In 1836, Harriet married the Professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Literature in that seminary, Calvin E. Stowe. At this time the question of slavery was uppermost in the minds of Christian people. In 1850 the Beecher family and the Stowes moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Mr. Stowe had accepted a professorship at Bowdoin College. The fugitive slave law was in operation and the people of the North seemed lacking in effort. Mrs. Stowe felt she must do something to arouse the people on this question, and we are told that one Sunday while sitting in church the
