When Elizabeth F Ellet compiled her history of "The Women of the Revolution," she could not have foreseen the deep interest in Colonial and Revolutionary history, that was destined to mark the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, nor could she have realised that the various patriotic societies that were to be organised among women, would lead to as great an interest in the lives of the mothers as in those of the fathers of the Republic. Yet the writer of these sketches of noted women has prepared for just such a phase of American life, which makes her work now appear a prophecy of the future as well as a summary of past events.