MOUNTCASTLE, Clara H., Canadian author, born in Clinton, Ont., 26 November, 1837. She was educated at Mount Pleasant, the family residence, and studied art, under John G. Howard, at Toronto. She was a teacher of drawing and painting from 1871 till 1884. Miss Mountcastle has received ten prizes for paintings in water-colors at exhibitions in Toronto, Hamilton, London, and Guelph. Her principal works are "The First of September" and "Wadsworth's Lake." An accident, which prevented her from teaching for four months, in 1878, turned her attention to literature, and she has since been a prolific and successful writer of poetry and prose, under the pen-name of "Caris Sima." She has published " The Mission of Love," "Lost," and other poems (Toronto, 1882); "A Mystery" (1886); and has now (1888) in preparation "Crow's Hollow," a Canadian novel.