M. SOPHIE HOMES.

("Millie Mayfield.")

HE subject of the present sketch, Mrs. Mary Sophie Shaw Homes,

THE of the present

was born in Frederick City, Maryland; but having resided in Louisiana nearly all her life, she claims it as the State of her adoption. She is the daughter of Thomas Shaw, of Annapolis, Md., who for over twenty years filled with honor the situation of cashier of the Frederick County Branch Bank of Maryland, and was a man beloved and highly respected by all who knew him. On her mother's side, her ancestors were good old Maryland Revolutionary stock, two of her great-uncles having fallen, in defence of their rights as freemen, at the battle of Germantown. After her father's death, which happened when she was quite a child, her mother removed with her family to New Orleans, where Mrs. Homes has since resided. She has been twice married: her first husband, Mr. Norman Rogers, dying in the second year of their union, she was left a widow at a very early age, and her life has been one of strange vicissitudes; but by nature she is energetic, resolute, and determined, and although not hopeful, is very enduring; and, as a friend once said of her, "possesses the rare qualification of contentment in an humble position, with capacities for a most elevated one."

She appeared before the literary world of New Orleans under the nom de plume of "Millie Mayfield," in 1857, as a newspaper contributor of essays, sketches, and poems, which (to quote from one of the leading journals of New Orleans, the "Daily Crescent") "could not fail of attracting attention from the unmistakable evidences of genius they displayed, the poetry being far above mediocrity, and the sketches spirited and entertaining;" so that when, in the same year, her first published volume in prose, entitled "Carrie Harrington; or, Scenes in New Orleans," made its appearance, the public was prepared to give it a most favorable reception. Of this book, Mrs. L. Virginia French thus wrote: "This is a most agreeable and readable book. ... The style is easy, natural, and unostentatious. There is a vein of

genial humor running through the whole book."

Says a reviewer in the "New Orleans Crescent" of "Carrie Harrington; or, Scenes in New Orleans:"

"This is a new and charming work by a Southern lady—the maiden effort, I may say, in novelistic literature, by one who is already favorably known to our State as a sweet poetess; for few are they who have read and not been pleased with the truthful emanations in harmonious numbers from the accomplished pen of 'Millie Mayfield.'

"Having just risen from a careful perusal of it, I can honestly pronounce it a work replete with refreshing thoughts, expressed with a flowing happiness of diction, supplying, at this season of the year particularly, a great desideratum, as all can't-get-aways and even run-aways across the lake will admit. "This the writer is constrained to confess, despite his predisposition to be hypercritical, --- he had almost said unfriendly to it, because, perhaps, of its being the production of a petticoat,—an institution spreading, as all the world knows, pretty considerably nowadays, when he sat down to glance. at its contents. Agreeably surprised, he was taught a lesson of the supreme folly of preconceived impressions, which he will not easily forget. The authoress of Carrie Harrington has in this novelette-if I may so term it, being in one volume, and yet as suggestive of thought and promotive of reflection, if not as well calculated to enchain attention and challenge admiration as many three-volumed novels written by established favorites of the reading public, and which, for the most part, answer to a charm Pollok's description of one, viz., 'A novel was a book three-volumed and once read, and oft crammed full of poisonous error, blackening every page, and oftener still of old deceased, putrid thought, and miserable incident, at war with nature, with itself and truth at war; yet charming still the greedy reader on, till, done, he tried to recollect his thoughts, and nothing found but dreaming emptiness,' —in this little work, I say, she has given an earnest of the possession of talent of a very high order in this branch of light literature. There is nothing labored about it a great blessing to readers; for elaboration, when apparent, is generally painful, at least to me. The characters spring into existence in rapid succession take and keep their places, while the individuality of each is maintained with tolerable integrity, and seemingly drawn from life by one who has diligently exercised the faculty for observation. I would not, however, be understood to say that in their portrayal there are no inequalities no inelegancies - no infelicities -no redundances; or that she is au fait in their introduction: better marshalling there might have been, which accomplishment can only be attained by practice, for there is no royal road to perfection, even for women, gifted as they are with intuition.

"Many of the scenes, though far from being faultless, sparkle with talent, and talent is something; but here and there she betrays a want of tact, and that, while not absolutely talent, is everything in every undertaking; for, as

somebody has somewhere said, sententiously, 'talent is power-tact, skill; talent is weight—tact, momentum; talent knows what to do

tact, how to do it; it is the eye of discrimination, the right hand of intellect,'—and so it is slipping into one's good graces as a billiard-ball insinuates itself into the pocket. The story is pleasingly simple and purely domestic — opening not in the hackneyed style to which so many of our novelists are notoriously addicted; such as a 'solitary horseman' was approaching a wood in time to rescue some beauty in distress, etc.; or, as a 'handsome stranger,' apparently on the shady side of thirty, leg-weary and foot-sore, arriving about sunset at a village inn, just in season to play the eavesdropper to a conversation, in which he learns wonders regarding himself, etc.

"The hall-door bell of Judge Loring's aristocratic mansion being vigorously rung, announces a visitor whose business would seem not to brook delay — and so it proves; for in waddles the pussy, fussy, garrulous, go-a-headative Mrs. Percival, with her everlasting exclamation of 'Lawful sakes alive!' to the great dismay and disgust of the haughty beauty, Isabelle Loring, who happens at home alone, with her hair in paper against an entertainment to be given in the evening, at which she fondly anticipates the conquest of Horace Nelson's heart. In no very amiable mood, but with many an unfriendly wish, does the proud girl hastily brush herself into presentableness, and descends to the parlor, where, with a smile that would rival that of a seraph in glory -- though with sorrow be it observed, expressly got up for the occasion by hypocrisy - she greets her visitor, who is all impatience to declare her mission.

Unromantic, plain, matter-of-fact, coarsely spoken is Mrs. Percival blunt to rudeness, and generous to a fault; and while indulging a vulgarity indigenous to her nature, and peculiarly offensive to 'ears polite,' displaying a heart as large as creation so that we cannot help loving her, and owning that 'even her failings lean to virtue's side.' In speech-and she is flippant enough in all conscience—she is a second edition of Mrs. Malaprop, constantly mispronouncing and misapprehending words; for example: she talks complacently of her 'morey-antic,' (moire antique;) says 'swarry' when she would say soirée; 'infermation' for inflammation; 'portfully' for portfolio, and so forth. Isabelle Loring has received a liberal education tracted grand ideas of upper-tendom, and being surpassingly beautiful, womanlike, requires no ghost from the grave to tell her so. Devoted to dress, magnificent in foreign airs, and inordinately fond of admiration, reminding us, in the matter of pride, and in that only, of Pauline Deschappelles, for there the likeness ends as Pauline is not without redeeming points — and, when crossed in desire, in some respects, of Lady Sneerwell. I have been thus particular, as these personages—the very antipodes of each other-play respectively important parts in the story.

con

"Mrs. Percival blurts out her errand in her accustomed manner, which is one of mercy, and is referred to mamma, who is at Aunt Langdon's, whither

Mrs. Percival directs her hurried steps, and in her haste almost runs foul of Miss Letty at the street-door a malicious piece of dry-goods, unworthy of the institution of calico, and rejoicing in the twofold occupation of dressmaker and scandal-monger. Miss Letty, in giving vent to her envy, bristles up and talks waspishly of Mrs. Percival's low origin, much to the edification of Isabelle, who is jealous of the exceeding loveliness of Mrs. Percival's only daughter and child, Ella. Ella, the pure-minded, the devoted, whom we could have wished had been made the heroine instead of Carrie, all beautiful and dutiful as she is, as we have often wished, when reading the 'Ivanhoe' of Scott, that the high-souled Rebecca had been preferred to the less interesting Rowena.

"Ella, like Isabelle, is enamored of Horace Nelson, but widely different are their loves; the one modestly conceals, the other coquettishly displays. At a party where they all meet, they discover that they are rivals, and, as it would seem to Ella, without hope of success on her part. The effect of this discovery is the loss of the roses from her cheek, which her mother observing and mistaking the cause, talks funnily enough of dosing the love-stricken girl with salts! Not a bad idea, by-the-by; we have faith in salts and senna, even for the correction of the malady of love. A heavenly creature is Ella, notwithstanding that she is the child of vulgar parents of mushroom growth into opulence! Horace Nelson is a fine young fellow, the scion of a family amply endowed with pride of birth, and dependent on a rich, gouty old uncle, who, in his bitter hostility to parvenuism, insists on his nephew marrying a full-blooded aristocrat on pain of disinheritance. Hard as is the alternative, the noble youth declares his love to Ella and his independence of the uncle, goes to woo the fickle goddess in the auriferous fields of California and Australia, returns with a pocket full of rocks, and marries the ever-faithful Ella. "Carrie Harrington and her brother Robert are left unexpectedly in a deplorable state of orphanage, when the good Mrs. P. opportunely appears, takes the distracted Carrie home with her, intending to adopt her, where, thanks to the excellent nursing of Ella, the health of the bereaved one is in due time re-established. The brother goes to sea. No sooner is Carrie herself again than she is afflicted with conscientious scruples as to eating the bread of idleness, and, after a scene, resolves to seek a public-school teachership, which, by the aid of Mr. Percival, she obtains, and makes acquaintance at the same time with a highly mercurial lady (Katy), who makes merry at the expense of the school-board with a wickedness of elegance richly meriting castigation. This, it is needless to add, refers to days of yore; for, as the Frenchman would say, nous avons change tout cele maintenant. Out of this acquaintance there grows a warm and lasting friendship between Carrie and Katy. The gouty old uncle, disgusted with the plebeianism of his nephew's amatory proclivities, proposes marriage to Isabelle, who, out of sheer spite to the same individual, accepts.

“They cross the lake, and meet at one of the watering-places, the Percivals,

Carrie, and Katy, and there marvel on marvel occurs. Edward Loring owns the soft impeachment to Carrie, who, nothing loth, frankly reciprocates. Isabelle heartlessly neglects her lord, who is hopelessly confined to his bedsuffers some French count to make illicit love to her, and elopes with him to find a watery grave. The shock of this elopement accelerates the death of the old uncle, who, before dying, recognizes in Carrie his grandchild. A portion of his vast wealth she of course inherits, and becomes the loved wife of the happy Edward Loring. Robert returns from a prosperous voyage, sees and straightway falls in love with Katy, who, like a sensible widow that she is, and none the worse for being 'second-hand,' takes compassion upon him after the most approved fashion, and 'all goes merry as a marriage-bell.'

"Such is an outline of the story. In conclusion, I cannot help expressing my admiration of Katy; she is the very 'broth' of a woman, brimful of fun, talks like a book, dealing extensively in refined irony, and often dropping remarks which fall and blister like drops of burning sealing-wax. Sometimes, however, her drollery outstrips her discretion and overleaps the boundary of propriety, acquiring a broadness hardly blameless, as in the quotation somewhat profanely applied, the hoop-fashion being the subject of conversation: "Though their beginning was small, yet their latter end should greatly increase.' The scenes and passages I would especially commend for truthfulness and raciness, are those of love between Carrie and Edward; of bathing, when one of the girls roguishly cries out, 'A shark!' and Mrs. P. innocently sits on the emplatre of a French woman; and of the bal masque, at which the count, who, like Esau, 'is a hairy man,' is caught toying with the bejewelled finger of Isabelle.

"The work, as I have already intimated, though not without blemishes, evidently bears the marks of genius, a little too freakish, at times, it is true; and if, as I understand, it was written for amusement, rather than with a view to publication, it is a highly creditable effort, and bespeaks a talent whose cultivation it would be a pity, if not a crime, to neglect."

The New York Dispatch, April 23, 1859, says:

"To our readers the name of 'Millie Mayfield' is already familiar as one of the best sketch and novelette writers of the day. All will be happy to learn that she has essayed a more extensive and elaborate work, under the title of 'Carrie Harrington.'

"We have only to add, that the tale is purely a social one, illustrative of every-day life in the 'better-to-do' class of society, and that, in this more pretentious effort, our authoress exhibits no lack of the mental power and perfect execution manifested in the best of her lesser ones. There is nothing of the 'sensational' in her story no startling positions, tragical incidents, or any of the clap-trap so much resorted to for effect by modern writers. She relies on her own power of portraying life as it is, and making us feel that her