About three miles north-west of St. Paul's lies a comparatively new suburb of the great metropolis, which but forty years ago was described as "a hamlet in the parish of Marylebone," and through which passes the Grand Junction Canal, almost reaching to Kilburn. London, with her ever-grasping clutch, has seized on the vast tract of ground, which erstwhile grew potatoes and cabbages for the multitude, and, abolishing the nursery and market-gardens, has transformed them into broad streets, of which one of the longest is Portsdown-road.

Not altogether inartistic is the row of substantially built houses where Mrs. Alexander Hector has been for some years located. It is far enough away to enable the popular authoress to pursue her literary vocation in peace and quiet, yet sufficiently near to keep her in touch with the busy world of literature and art, wherein she is deservedly so great a favourite. The blue fan, serving as a screen for the window, is a sort of land-mark distinguishing the house from its fellows. You are shown into the library, where Mrs. Alexander is seated at a handsome oak writing-table, busily engaged in finishing the last words of a chapter in her new story. She looks up with a smile of welcome, and is about to discontinue her occupation; but you hastily beg her to go on with her work, which will give you time to look around; and as she complies with the request, she says pleasantly, "Well, then, just for three minutes only."

Your glance lights again on the gentle author herself, and you watch the pen gliding easily over the page, which rests on a diminutive shred of well-worn blotting-paper. The face is fair and smooth, the hair, slightly grey, is simply parted back from the forehead, and the three-quarter profile, which presents itself to your gaze, is straight and well-cut. She wears a little white cap, and a long black gown, trimmed with jet, and close by her side lies an enormous Persian tabby cat of great age.

The study is divided from the adjoining room by heavy curtains drawn aside and a Japanese screen. It is all perfectly simple and unpretending, but the rooms are thoroughly comfortable and home-like.

The chapter being finished, your hostess rises, declares herself entirely at your service, and mentions that she is now engaged on a new three volume novel, which is to come out early next year in America, and is as yet unnamed.

Mrs. Alexander was born in Ireland, though no touch of accent can be detected. She never left that country until after her nineteenth birthday. Her father belonged to an old squirearchal family, the Frenches of Roscommon. He was a keen sportsman, and a member of the famous Kildare Hunt. The few old pictures which hang on the wall are all family portraits. One represents a paternal ancestor, Lord Annaly, painted in his peer's robes. He was one of the Gore family, of whom no less than nine members sat at the same time in parliament shortly before the Union. Another picture of a comfortable-looking old gentleman in a powdered wig is the portrait of a high legal dignitary, well known in his day as Theobald Wolfe, a great-uncle of Mrs. Alexander. A third is a seventeenth-century portrait of Colonel Dominic French, who looks manly and resolute, in spite of his yellow satin coat, flowing wig, and lace cravat, drawn through his buttonhole. This gentleman was the first Protestant of the family, and is credited with having given up his faith for love of his wife, who simpers beside him in an alarmingly dÉcolletÉe blue dress, suggestive of the courtly style in the time of the Merry Monarch. Her husband, with the ardour of a convert—or a pervert—raised a regiment of dragoons among his tenantry, and fought on the winning side at the Battle of the Boyne.

Mrs. Alexander remarks that her "kinsfolk and acquaintance in early life, were, if not illiterate, certainly unliterary." "I always loved books," she adds, "and was fortunate, when a very young girl, barely out of the schoolroom, in winning the favour of a dear old blind Scotchman, whose wife was a family friend. He was a profound thinker, and an earnest student before he lost his sight. My happiest and most profitable hours were spent in reading aloud to him books, no doubt a good deal beyond my grasp, but which, thanks to his kind and patient explanations, proved the most valuable part of my very irregular education. In reading the newspapers to him, I also gathered some idea of politics, probably very vague ideas, but so liberal in their tendency that my relatives, who were 'bitter Protestants' and the highest of high Tories, looked on me, if not as a 'black sheep,' certainly as a 'lost mutton.' The tendency has remained with me, though my consciousness of the many-sided immensity of the subject, has kept me from forming any decided opinions."

The only bits of ancestry she values, Mrs. Alexander says, are her descent from Jeremy Taylor, the celebrated Bishop of Down and Connor, and the near cousinship of her grandmother to Lord Kilwarden, who was the first victim in Emmet's rising; that high-minded judge, whose last words, as he yielded up his life to the cruel pikes of his assailants, were, "Let them have a fair trial."

The above-mentioned Jeremy Taylor, and the Rev. Charles Wolfe—whose well-known poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore," was so greatly appreciated by Lord Byron—were the only literary members of the family on her father's side; on her mother's, she can claim kindred with Edmund Malone, the well-known annotator of Shakespeare.

On leaving Ireland, Mrs. Alexander, with her parents, travelled a good deal, both at home and abroad, occasionally sojourning in London, where, while still young, she began to write. Her first attempts were made in the Family Herald and Household Words, beginning with a sketch called "Billeted in Boulogne." This is an account of their own personal experience, when they endured the inconvenience of having French soldiers quartered on them.

It was about this time that she was introduced to Mrs. Lynn Linton, by the late Adelaide Proctor, with whose family she was on terms of some intimacy, and with whose charming grandmother, the once well-known and admired Mrs. Basil Montague, she was a prime favourite. From this introduction arose the long, close friendship with the brilliant author of "Joshua Davidson," which Mrs. Alexander values so highly, and of which she is so justly proud.

In 1858 she married Mr. Hector, and wrote no more until she became a widow.

Mr. Hector was a great explorer and traveller. He had been a member of Landor's expedition to seek the sources of the Niger, and immediately after his return to England he joined General Chesney in his attempt to steam down the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf. He was also with Layard during his discoveries in Nineveh, and spent many years in Turkish Arabia. A man of great enterprise and ability, he was the pioneer of commerce, and was the first who sent from London a ship and cargo direct to the Persian Gulf, thereby opening up the trade between the two countries.

It was after her husband's long illness, which terminated fatally, that Mrs. Alexander again turned her thoughts to literature, to seek distraction from her bereavement. It was then she wrote "The Wooing o't." The book was a great success; it ran first through the pages of Temple Bar; it was then published in three volumes, passed through many editions, and has a world-wide reputation.

"I always write leisurely," says Mrs. Alexander; "I never will hurry, or write against time. No, I have not much method," she answers, in reply to your question, "nor am I quite without it. My stories are generally suggested to me by some trait of character or disposition, which I have adapted rather than produced. My people are rarely portraits, they are rather mosaics; and, I must say, I am exceedingly shy of dealing with my men. Women I do understand. Character to me is all-important. If I can but place the workings of heart and mind before my readers, the incidents which put them in motion are of small importance comparatively. Of course, a strong, clear, logical plot is a treasure not to be found every day! I am not a rapid writer; I like to live with my characters, to get thoroughly acquainted with them; and I am always sorry to part with the companions who have brought me many a pleasant hour of oblivion—oblivion from the carking cares that crowd outside my study door."

There is one point on which you would fain differ from the author. An intimate knowledge of her books convinces you that her power of dealing with her "men" is very great, and that her habits of observation have stood her in good stead, whilst depicting with ready wit and considerable skill the characters of her heroes. As you follow step by step the career of the fascinating Trafford, in "The Wooing o't," and watch the workings of his mind, the struggles between his natural cynicism and pride, and his love for the humbly-born but high-souled little heroine Maggie; his graceful rejection of the hand and fortune of the proud heiress, and the final triumph of love over pedigree, you can with truth echo the author's words, and feel that you too are "sorry to part" with him and his wife, and would gladly welcome a sequel to their histories.

Mrs. Alexander observes that there is one character in that book drawn from life, but adds, with a laugh, she "will not tell you which it is." You have, however, a suspicion of your own.

"Her Dearest Foe" was the author's next work. It is constructed on entirely different lines, but it is equally absorbing. The varied fortunes of the brave heroine of the "Berlin Bazaar," of the masterful Sir Hugh Galbraith, and the faithful cousin Tom, keep up an engrossing interest from the first line to the last.

Her husband's Christian name being Alexander, she elected to write under that appellation, fearing that her first book might be a failure. Having begun with it, she has ever since kept the same nom de plume, and she remarks, "It does just as well as any other."

The great success which attended these two books justified Mrs. Alexander's further efforts. "Maid, Wife, or Widow," a clever little story, is an "Episode of the '66 War in Germany"; "Which Shall it Be?" "Look Before You Leap," and "Ralph Wilton's Weird" were brought out during the next few years. They were all favourably reviewed, and many of them passed into several editions. These were followed at intervals by "Second Life," "At Bay," "A Life Interest," "The Admiral's Ward," "By Woman's Wit." Mrs. Alexander wrote "The Freres" during a long residence in Germany, whither she went for the education of her children. The fact that she was on intimate terms with many of the good old German families enabled her to write graphically from her personal knowledge of the country.

In "The Executors" Mrs. Alexander broke new ground. The life-like delineation of Karapet is drawn from her own observation and experience of Syrian Christians, but the incidents are, of course, imaginary.

"Blind Fate," "A Woman's Heart," "Mammon," "The Snare of the Fowler," followed in due course, also some clever little shilling stories. The author's latest published work in three volumes is called "For His Sake," a pleasant and interesting novel, well worthy of the writer of "The Wooing o't."

Mrs. Alexander's great ambition originally was to write a play; indeed, her first few stories were planned with that object in view, but she soon abandoned the idea, and says she "turned them into novels instead." That there was some dramatic power in a few of her earlier efforts is evident, as she was applied to for permission to dramatise "Her Dearest Foe" and "By Woman's Wit." "Though," she adds, "it seems to me that the latter is not suited to the stage."

Mrs. Alexander writes best in England. She says that London "inspires her." She holds strong views upon education, and maintains that girls, as well as boys, should be trained to follow some definite line in life. She would have any special talent, whereby its possessor could, if necessary, earn her own living cultivated to the utmost; and, consistently following out her principles, she has sent her youngest daughter, who has a decided genius for painting, to work in one of the best-known studios in Paris, where she takes a fairly good place, and by her diligence and ardour for her art at least deserves success. Another daughter fulfils the onerous task of being "mother's right hand." But she has yet a third, who has found a happy career in the bonds of wedlock, and has made her home at Versailles. She is now on a visit to her mother, and whilst you are conversing, the door opens, the young wife comes in with a lovely infant in her arms, and the "first grandchild" is introduced with pride. He is a perfect cherub, and makes friends instantly.

Asking Mrs. Alexander about her early friends in literature, she mentions with grateful warmth the name of Mrs. S. C. Hall, "whose ready kindness never failed." "To her," she says, "I owe the most valuable introduction I ever had. It was to the late Mr. W. H. Wills, editor of Household Words. To his advice and encouragement I am deeply indebted. His skill and discrimination as an editor were most remarkable, whilst his knowledge and wide experience were always placed generously at the service of the young and earnest wanderer in the paths of literature, numbers of whom have had reason to bless the day when they first knew Harry Wills."

Mrs. Alexander is pre-eminently a lovable woman. In the large society where she is so well known, and so much respected, to mention her name is to draw forth affectionate encomiums on all sides. You venture to make some allusion to this fact; a faint smile comes over the placid countenance, as she says inquiringly, "Yes? I believe I have made many friends. You see, I never rub people the wrong way if I can help it, and I think I have some correct ideas respecting the true value of trifles. Yet I believe I have a backbone; at least I hope so, for mere softness and compliance will not bear the friction of life."