Cal went on to give a rapid account of all he knew.

comes to Snowdon to recuperate from an attack of fever, he does not recognize in the dashing

his benefactor. Naturally, Elise longs for revenge, and just what that revenge was and how it was brought about the book narrates with most agreeable vivacity. There are two other love affairs in the story which have almost equal claims upon the reader's interest, so that there are no dull pages from the beginning to the end of the volume. The characters are varied and all care

quisite specimen of the New England maiden

"And leave you and Vic here? Never!"

You must not pause one minute. Not even to eat. Do you think you've tired Dick?"

amid unconventional surroundings and blossoming into loveliness as artlessly as the trailing arbutus, which might be taken as the emblem of her personality. Then there is that gracious

sorrow under a mantle of smiles and kindly deeds, and at last coming to the happiness she had craved so long. (Houghton, M. $1.25.) -Boston Beacon.

THE LAWTON GIRL.

IN" The Lawton Girl" Mr. Harold Frederic has given us another highly realistic and instructive study of life in a modern American manufacturing town. The perils that beset the path of those who have riches, the temptations in the way of those who would be rich, the problems

ways for the moral elevation and intellectual en

He hardly knew, after he was in the saddle, in what words he put his good-by. He saw two faces that watched him as Dick sprang through the gate. It seemed almost as if he had seen them for the last time, and then he thought, again, that perhaps the best hope for Santa Lucia and all in it had been confided to the swift feet of the red mustang. (Harper. $1.)-From Stoddard's "Red Mustang."

MISTRESS OF BEECH KNOLL.

A VERY pretty story of a fresh and unconventional type is "The Mistress of Beech Knoll," by Clara Louise Burnham. Beech Knoll is an attractive homestead in an old-fashioned New England village, and the new mistress of the place is a beautiful, proud, and impulsive young widow, Elise Redmond, who, as Elise Beckwith, has had certain romantic ideas of dividing her property with a certain young man, Terriss Chester, whom she fancies to have some claim on her late husband's estate. Terriss quietly, yet peremptorily, refuses the offer made by Elise, and even playfully impugns her motives. When he

involved in the story, but it is the heroism, the self-devotion, and the final tragic triumph of one poor girl which form the central motive of a discerning and impressive book. Mr. Frederic has a wonderful command of his material. The whole atmosphere of Thessaly in its rude, new-world incompleteness, its narrow perspective, its tremendous possibilities, is admirably suggested, for Mr. Frederic is an uncompromising artist, and he spares no line, however ungraceful, that will serve to make the picture complete. What one admires most in the work of Mr. Frederic is the straightforward, earnest, sincere manner in which he goes to the end in view. Undertaking to depict certain phases of life for his readers, he allows full play to every light and shadow. Realism with him does not mean a seeking out of the low and bestial, or even a preference for what is hard and unlovely; it simply means that he will make no deliberate selection in defiance of nature's own truths. "The Lawton Girl" is a novel that will unmistakably enhance Mr. Frederic's fame as a writer of sound and serviceable fiction. It has an abiding merit because it is honest work honestly done. (Scribner. $1.25; pap., 50 c.) -Boston Beacon.

THIS book does great credit to the accomplishments of the young Baltimorean who prepared it. Miss Horwitz is a daughter of Theophilus B. Horwitz, Esq., of the Baltimore Bar, and a young lady evidently of decidedly literary taste and ability, as the book before us indicates. The volume is handsomely bound; beautifully illustrated, and its contents will please and entertain adults as well as children. While the stories are not above the comprehension of the youngsters, being gracefully and prettily told, they are decidedly interesting and entertaining even to the elders. It is a book which should sell readily at this season, as no more attractive, useful, or pleasing present could be procured for the youth of both sexes. It has all the fascination of the Arabian Nights. The book also contains: The Shepherd Boy and the King's Daughter under the title of The Caravan is included The Caliph Story, The Haunted Ship, The Story of the Severed Hand, Fatme's Rescue, The Story of the False Prince, The Stranger's Story, The Boy and the Treasures of the Old Witch, The Princess on the Glass Mountain, and A Story of Two Brothers. (Lothrop. $1.25.) Baltimore Daily News.

"JACK HORNER" is a Southern novel of the war period. The scene is laid principally in Richmond, and many interesting and apparently truthful pictures are presented of life in the Confederate capital at that time. The straits to which the people were reduced for the luxuries, comforts, and often the very necessaries of life; the gay and defiant mood in which they faced these embarrassments; the odd ways in which all, but especially the women, contrived to invent some kind of substitute for the real things which could not be obtained; the pervading "makebelieve" convention under which everybody acted, pretending not to perceive that what purported to be coffee was burnt barley or wheat, that what purported to be wine was some mysterious and indescribable concoction, that the cos

tumes of the grandmothers, resurrected from lumber closets and attics, were entirely in the prevailing fashion, that, in short, nothing had deteriorated in the condition of Richmond society-all this is very amusing, and strongly reminds one of the behavior of the old French noblesse in the prisons of the Revolution. As to Jack Horner himself, he is really little more than a peg whereon to hang the adventures of the grown-up people. Naturally there is a heroic Confederate officer, one of Stonewall Jackson's men, but the author seems to have thought him too good for so naughty a world, and so "removes" him to make room for a Northern soldier, who unwittingly carries out the principle va victis. The novel will add to the reputation of Mrs. Tiernan. (Houghton, M. $1.25.)-N. Y. Tribune.

THE short serial story, "Expiation," by the Western author, Octave Thanet, being concluded in Scribner's Magazine for April, is issued in book-form by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, with a number of good illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. The story is of more than ordinary originality. It deals with social conditions in Arkansas at the close of the war, and represents the life of the people on the Black River, in that era, stripped of their property, and harassed by the guerilla "gray-backs," with energetic fidelity. In a certain sense, the work is crude, but there are several well-drawn characters in it-Colonel Rutherfurd, the planter, of "Montaigne," Dick Barnabas, the guerilla leader, and Parson Collins, the local preacher, being perhaps the best. The love-passages are well enough, without being important, and the individuality of Fairfax Rutherfurd, the lover, who furnishes the "expiation," is less pleasing than the object of his devotion, Miss Adele. But, in fact, the merit of the work is its picture of the conditions of the time in Arkansas, and therefore it is the realistic, not the imaginative, pages that are most striking. (Scribner. $1.)-The American.

"One of her monkey-shines was to always refuse to go past a fence corner. I don't know why, but you couldn't get her past a fence corner no way on earth. If you pushed her too hard, she'd begin rearing and kicking, and finally lay plumb down on the ground, her four legs kicking away like boiling water. The only way with her was to get off and pat her and much her, and lead her round the corner. Then she was all right, and would step out right well until the next corner. Another trick was, she'd take a notion into her head that she had done travelling enough in one direction, and if you didn't politely turn round, she'd like's not run you spang up against a fence-rail and scrape your leg. But the blamedest fool notion she had was about the dinner-horn; whenever she'd hear the Parson's horn go, no matter where the critter might bemiddle of the row ploughing, maybe-off she'd go, just the same, bullet line back to the barn. All such like tricks made her, in spite of her cuteness, a sorter uneasy beast for to have on a fyarm. So, Parson 'lowed he'd sell her. He tried to sell her to me, and for some reasons I'd have liked right well to buy the pesky critter. We'd a screw press then, and I never did see a mule on earth could pull down's big a bale as Ma'y Jane, but Dad gum 'er-b-begging your pardon for the expression, my dear-if you left her by her lone a minnit, she'd break the gears, and jest naturally split the mud to the byarn. That's Ma'y Jane! So I wouldn't buy." (Scribner. $1; pap., 50 c.)-From Thanet's "Expiation."

PRETATION.

WHAT is interpretation? The anonymous author of this book answers the question, or perhaps suggests a form in which an answer might be given, by saying: "What is herein written is individual, as is all interpretation, but has been without previous design as to its undertaking or its shaping. It cannot be said that it was of compulsion, since it is only in an absolutely free movement that one is caught and carried forward, as if independently of all self-determination, to an issue of which there is no prevision. It has not been the result of any striving after truth. An interpretation is not an invention, a mental construction, a speculation, but a vision of living reality as seen in the light of its own life." The spirit in which this rather original volume is written may be suggested in this passage on real knowledge: "Even in interpretation there are different fields of vision. As one may read a book with reference merely to its grammar or style, so one may regard Nature with reference merely to the mathematics of her movements, and he will then gain real knowledge, and valuable, as applicable to the material uses of life, and, incidentally, he will receive larger meanings and impressions. But if he will put aside these limitations as to the scope and motive of his regard, and, as a lover of Nature, follow her living ways, she will reveal herself to him. He will cease to make mere generalizations and classifications, and to lay such stress upon nomenclature that he would seem to be a kind of scientific Nominalist. . . . It does not matter where he starts. He may follow the bees as they fertilize flowers, and there will be unfolded to him a beautiful mystery. If he will follow the butterflies, he will receive an evangel, not excluding a hint of the Resurrection. It is thus that Science is being born again, the meek inheriting the earth." This passage might of itself give an incomplete expression of the author's point of view. Let us add another that illuminates the situation completely: "It is true that a patient witness to Nature, like Darwin, will be followed by a host of Nominationalists, who will ignore the life, apotheosizing a notion, as in making a God of Natural Selection. The genius and sincere agnosticism is the meekness of those content with the unfoldings of a real life, excluding the arbitrary and supposititious. The true agnostics keep to the simplicity of faith, instead of constructing a kind of scientific mythology, in which Laws and Forces parade with Olympian majesty."

The book is a representative of that spirit in modern inquiry which seeks to conciliate the unyielding churchman and the arbitrary sceptic. To be sure, the tone of the book is not affirmatively

quiry, it pardons much to the spirit of liberty in thought, and offers a view which many minds unable to trust themselves on even the outer

boundaries of the materialistic philosophy of agnosticism may find it comfortable to accept. The agnostic may consider it a stepping-stone, yet the churchman need not feel it to be otherwise than an enlightened review of essential truth. The scope of the author's investigation is uncommonly broad, being by no means confined to any merely ecclesiastical field, while pursued very largely from the vantage-ground of orthodoxy. (Harper. $1.25.)—Brooklyn Times.

MILTON'S LAST DAYS.

BUT Milton wrought on; his wife Betty, of whom he spoke more affectionately than ever once of his daughters, humored his poor fagged appetites of the table. "Paradise Regained" was in hand, and later the “Samson Agonistes." His habits were regular; up at five o'clock; a chapter of the Hebrew Bible read to him by his daughter Mary—what time she stayed; an early breakfast, and quiet lonely contemplation after it (his Then work came, nephew tells us) till seven. putting Quaker Ellwood to helpful service, or whoever happened in, and could fathom the reading-this lasting till mid-day dinner; afterward a walk in his garden (when he had one) for two hours, in his old gray suit, in which many a time passers-by saw him sitting at his door. There was singing in later afternoon, when there was a voice to sing for him; and instrumental music, when his, or a friendly hand touched the old organ. After supper, a pipe and a glass of water; always persistently temperate; and then, night and rest.

He attended no church in his later years, finding none in absolute agreement with his beliefs; sympathizing with the Quakers to a certain degree, with the orthodox Independents too; but flaming up at any procrustean laws for faith; never giving over a certain tender love, I think, for the organ-music and storied splendors of the Anglican Church; but with a wild, broad freedom of thought chafing at any ecclesiastic law made by man, that galled him or checked his longings. His clear, clean intellect-not without its satiric jostlings and wrestlings-its petulancies and caprices-sought and maintained, independently, its own relation with God and the mysterious fu

ture.

Our amiable Dr. Channing, with excellent data before him, demonstrated his good Unitarian faith; but though Milton might have approved his nice reasonings, I doubt if he would have gone to church with him. He loved liberty; he could

not travel well in double harness, not even in his household or with the elders. His exalted range of vision made light of the little aids and lorgnettes which the conventional teachers held out to him. Creeds and dogmas and vestments and canons, and all humanly consecrated helps, were but Jack-o'-lanterns to him, who was swathed all about with the glowing clouds of glory that rolled in upon his soul from the infinite depths.

In the year 1674-he being then sixty-five years old-on a Sunday, late at night, he died; and with so little pain that those who were with him did not know when the end came. He was buried-not in the great cemetery of Bunhill Fields, close by his house-but beside his father, in the old parish church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, where he had been used to go as a boy, and where he had been used to hear the old burial Office for the Dead-now intoned over his grave-"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." (Scribner. $1.50.)-From Mitchell's "English Lands, Letters, and Kings."

IRISH MYTHS AND FOLK-LORE.* THESE two books will be in touch with a large number of American people, who, like the present writer, were reared with Irish "help." As the nurses, chambermaids, cooks, and other household and personal servants were the sons and daughters of Erin, there is in our mind a large play of light and shadow projected from the myth-world of the Emerald Isle. Much of this has in it a weird beauty, like that which impresses the imagination when, after a stormy voyage across the Atlantic, the mass of greenery, half in sun and half in cloud, rises out of the blue waves. Our first story-tellers were Irish maids, and their fairy tales and folk legends we have never forgotten.

We recognize some of our old friends in the two elegantly printed volumes now before us. Appropriately bound in the two shades of green, of new and old heather, and gold, and stamped with a shamrock design, Mr. Jeremiah Curtin's collection of twenty stories has a tasteful dress. Mr. Curtin writes his preface from the Cascade Mountains, State of Washington, but his introduction shows that he has travelled a good deal on foot among the comparatively few living repositories of Irish myth-the old folks who speak Gaelic. Mr. Curtin is quite right in insisting that myths must be studied in the language in which they were first swaddled. He considers Max Müller's explanation of mythology as a "disease of language" very unsatisfactory. Dis ease of language is merely an incident in the

*Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland. By Jeremiah Curtin, Boston: Little, Brown & Co. $2.00.

Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland. By Lady Wilde. Scribner & Welford. $2.25.

history of myths, and not a central or germinal principle sufficient to explain all mythology. In this position we believe Mr. Curtin is quite correct, as well as in his other statement that true myths-and there are many such-are the most comprehensive and splendid statements of truth known to man. The general philosophy, of Mr. Curtin's valuable introduction is sustained by a study of the myths of the far eastern portion of the world, as one may see in Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain's introduction to the translation of the Japanese Kojiki, or Records of Ancient Mat

ters.

The twenty stories here given are genuinely Irish, full of Keltic fancy, rollicking humor, gloom, and glory. The stupid giants, nimble princesses, and happy-go-easy youth, are all here as we heard of them long ago, with mouth open, from servant-maids just off from the bogs. Some of our narrators had never, until on board ship or in America, looked through a pane of glass. or gone up or down stairs. The incredible labors laid on the hapless captive, the iron spike waiting for his head, and the lovely daughter who performs miracles for him, are here with the symbols and machinery of fairy world, all seen in most decidedly local and Irish color. "Shaking Head," "Fair, Brown, and Trembling,"

The Birth of Fin Mad Cumhail and Origin of the Fenians of Erin," could hardly have grown on any other soil than that in which the potato is supposed to have so congenial a home. One has a constant feeling, in reading these strong, quaint stories, that Mr. Curtin has gotten very near to the originals, and hence his book is of the first order of merit.

Lady Wilde, the mother of the well-known editor, poet, and apostle of applied æsthetics, has given us a book of less literary and scientific value than Mr. Curtin's, but still one of great interest. Her volume brings us even more closely home to the business and the hearts of her fellowcountrymen and countrywomen. Though dwelling in a world unreal to us, we are on the solid earth. She shows how the Irish, separated by geographical and linguistic walls from the rest of Europe, have remained unchanged in temperament and nature. They still cling to the old traditions with a fervor and faith that would make them, even now, suffer death rather than violate a superstition or neglect an ancient usage of their fathers. No amount of modern philosophical teaching seems to be able to shake their reverential beliefs. After reading these two books, one has profound sympathy with Mr. Parnell, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, and the American statesmen, who probably agree in one point, that they wish the Irishman would keep step to the music of humanity. The doctors especially ought to find much amusement, if not edification, in this