business four years later for the law.  This profession also
     failed to appeal to him, although what he learned in it proved
     extremely useful to him in his literary career.  His first
     published book was a “Life” of his father, William Collins,
     R.A., in 1847.  The success of the work gave him an incentive
     towards writing, and three years later he published an
     historical romance, “Antonina, or The Fall of Rome.”  About
     this time he made the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, who was
     then editor of “Household Words,” to which periodical he
     contributed some of his most successful fiction.  “No Name,”
     published in 1862, depended less upon dramatic situations and
     more upon analysis of character and the solution of a problem. 
     That he was successful in his purpose is chiefly evidenced by
     the wide popularity the story received on its appearance.  “The
     main object of the story,” he wrote in the introduction to the
     first edition, “is to appeal to the reader’s interest in a
     subject which has been the theme of some of the greatest
     writers, living and dead, but which has never been, and can
     never be, exhausted, because it is a subject eternally
     interesting to all mankind.  A book that depicts the struggle
     of a human creature under those opposing influences of Good
     and Evil which we have all felt, which we have all known.” 
     Like others of Collins’ stories, “No Name” was successfully
     presented on the stage.  Wilkie Collins died on September 23,
     1889.

I.—­Nobody’s Children

A letter from America, bearing a New Orleans stamp, had an extraordinary effect on the spirits of the Vanstone family as they sat round the breakfast table at Coome-Raven, in West Somersetshire.

“An American letter, papa!” exclaimed Magdalen, the youngest daughter, looking over her father’s shoulder.  “Who do you know at New Orleans?”

Mrs. Vanstone, sitting propped up with cushions at the other end of the table, started and looked eagerly at her husband.  Mr. Vanstone said nothing, but his air of preoccupation and his unusual seriousness, which not even Magdalen’s playfulness affected, proved clearly that something was wrong.  The mystery of the letter puzzled both Magdalen and her elder sister Norah, and in particular aroused a feeling of uneasiness, impossible to explain, in the mind of the old family friend and governess, Miss Garth.

Though neither Mr. nor Mrs. Vanstone offered any explanation, Miss Garth felt more than ever certain that something unusual had occurred, when, on the following day, they announced their intention of going to London on private business.  For nearly a month they stayed away, and at the end of that period returned without offering any account of what they had done on their mysterious visit.