At nineteen, Julia Collinson became the wife of Walter de Winton, Esquire, of Maedlwch Castle, Radnorshire; but after only twelve years was left a widow, with two sons and a daughter. Her life was devoted to making their home as bright and joyous as her own had been; and it was only in the loneliness that ensued on the children going to school that her authorship commenced, with a child's book called "The Lonely Island."
Later she wrote "The Valley of the Hundred Fires," tracing the habits, characters and the destiny of the family of Gateshead. The father was by this time dead, and extracts from his sermons and diary appear; but "Emily," the mother, is the real heroine of the whole narrative, and though there is so little plot that it hardly deserves the name of novel, there is a wonderful charm in the delineation. There are a few descriptions of manners and of dresses which are amusing; nor must we omit the portrait of the grandmother, Mrs. King (called Reine in the book), daughter to the governor of one of the colonies in America before the separation, with the manners of her former princess-ship and something of the despotism. She was a friend of Hannah More, a beneficent builder of schools, and produced a revolt by herself cutting the hair of all the scholars!
"The Queen of the County" relates Mrs. de Winton's experiences of elections among "the stormy hills of Wales" in the early days of the Reform Bill. "Margaret and her Bridesmaids" draws more upon invention. Each of two young girls, through the injudiciousness of her parents, has married the _wrong_ person. Margaret acquiesces too much in her husband's indolence, and when herself roused to the perception of duty tries in vain to recover lost ground. Her friend Lottie is a high-spirited little soul, determined to do her duty as a wife, but not to pretend the love she does not feel, till it has been won. She is rather provokingly and unnaturally perfect, especially as she is only seventeen, always knowing when to obey up to the letter in a manner which must so have "riled" her husband that his persistent love is hardly credible, though it shows itself in attempts to isolate her, so that she shall have no resource save himself. His endeavours bring upon him heart complaint, whereof he dies, under her tender care, though she never affects to be grief-stricken. Only, as Margaret has lost her husband about the same time in a yachting accident, Lottie refuses to listen to the addresses of a former lover of Margaret's until she is convinced both that her friend will never form another attachment and that the original passion she had inspired is absolutely dead. There is a good deal of character in the story, though overdrawn, and it has survived so as to call for a new edition.