1907, the Art Gallery has been a recognized state institution, and as its Vice-President and Superintendent and as the writer of the art lectures that accompany the work, Mrs. Aplington's broad-minded, artistic temperament and student's persistency have made the gallery truly a work of art.

At present, the Aplingtons are living at Miami, Florida, but for a quarter of a century, Council Grove, the most famous spot on the Santa Fe Trail, was their home. Special investigations and researches on the subject of the old Santa Fe Trail days and lecturers on educational and literary topics resulted from years spent in that historic place.

"Pilgrims of the Plains," which came out in Feb., 1913, is worthy of a place in the front rank of western stories. In July of this year, Grossett and Dunlap will bring it out in their "Popular Edition" of novels.

Mrs. Aplington is now working on a book on "Art-Museums of America" and judging from the comments of prominent Museum Directors, this will be as great a success as her novel. "Florida of the Reclamation," a character story with scenes laid in and around Miami, Florida, is also in preparation.

EMMA UPTON VAUGHN.

The author of that versatile little book of short stories, "The Lower Bureau Drawer" is Emma Upton Vaughn, a Kansas City, Kansas teacher. These heart stories, showing keen insight of human nature—especially woman nature—deal with every day life, each one a fascinating revelation, of character and soul.

Mrs. Vaughn was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her early life was spent in Kansas. She is a graduate of the Kansas University, and has taught in the public schools of the state.

She wrote the "Bible and the Flag in the Public Schools" and has contributed both prose and verse to the leading magazines and newspapers. Feature articles and many good essays appear over her signature. Her "Passing From Under The Partial Eclipse" did much to give Kansas City, Kansas her recognized place commercially on the map. A novel, "The Cresap Pension," exposing a great pension fraud, is ready for the press.

JESSIE WRIGHT WHITECOMB.

Jessie Wright Whitcomb, a Topeka writer of juvenile books is a lawyer in active practice with her husband, Judge George H. Whitcomb and a mother of a remarkable family of five boys and one girl. The oldest son gained his A. B. in 1910 at the age of eighteen; in 1911 was appointed Rhodes scholar for Kansas; and is now a student at Oxford. His father and mother are in England at present visiting him.

Mrs. Whitcomb is a contributor to the magazines and in addition, has written "Odd Little Lass," "Freshman and Senior," "Majorbanks," "His Best Friend," "Pen's Venture," "Queer As She Could Be," and "Curly Head."

She is a graduate of the University of Vermont and the Boston University Law School and was the first woman to lecture before a man's law school.

MYRA WILLIAMS JARRELL.

Myra Williams Jarrell, the daughter of the late Archie L. Williams, for thirty years, the attorney for the Union Pacific Railway in Kansas, and the grand-daughter of Judge Archibald Williams, the first United States Circuit Judge of Kansas, appointed by Lincoln, comes of a literary family. All of the men and some of the women on the father's side of the family and also, on the mother's to a great extent, had literary talent.

As a child, she cherished an ambition to write and when occasionally one of her letters to St. Nicholas saw publication, she felt she had crossed the Alps of her desire. Her first real story, however, was written as she rocked the cradle of her first born. The day, when she first saw her "stuff" in print, stands out in her memory