... . 1. KIDER HAGGARD. (C asset I.) Had Mr. Rider Haggard's genius been com pelled to keep its native land, it would surely have found no congenial home in English town or country outside His Majesty's. Fortunately, there has been no such restriction, and its happiest ground has been Africa Africa old and new. His latest romance, , belongs to the past. Ancient Thebes and the great unmolested ...

... . By Marie Van Vorst. (Mills and Boon.) American towns, American ways, and American expressions place in what may at least be regarded as a bracing atmosphere. Should a lover meet his lady after long absence, and meet her married, Bully 1 he breathes in ecstasy. Bully the remark finds an English reader cold to the fine moment. But once hardened to the gosh and gollys and corkers, ...

... . By G. Dorset. Hettiemann.) In one of his philosophical works Balzac treats of the successful husband, and no reader can have missed the reflection that the metier is an arduous one, but it becomes child's-play beside the patience, heroism, and martyrdom demanded of this successful wife. Esther Carey was left at the age of fifteen to provide for a family of six. New York must be a ...

... Bawbee Jock. By Amy McLaren. [John Murray.) Bawbee Jock belongs to that large family in fiction who wear an appearance of avarice and meanness because they are really the devotees of a quixotic generosity. The lady who, on an early page, proposes to Bawbee Jock, divining his rare qualities, is related to a group, quite as numerous, who choose to masquerade as beggar-maids when tl.ey are ...

... I nm /A AA 0:;- THE CHINA THAT IS PASSING. A DEVOUT Chinese, writes Mrs. A, S. Roe, will sometimes keep a 'moral account-book.' There is a volume, called ''The Rules of Merit and Transgression,' in which the commercial value of deeds is given. For instance: To pay the debts of a father counts ten to the good; to worship at his burial, fifty; and to bury a bird or lend an umbrella, one. On ...

... . By E. V. Lucas. (Met/men.) A book that bears Mr. Lucas's name on its cover needs no recommendation. A dozen endearing qualities spring to the mind at sight of it. himself is one of those rare beings-- too fastidious for the artist, too imaginative for the scholar, too humorous for the epicurean, yet related to each, and marked with a deep vein of domestic tenderness. Greatly alienated ...

... By Pkrcy White. {Mills and Boon). An Averted Marriage (Mills and Boon), by Mr. Percy White, is a collection of tales named from the first of the series. An old bachelor believes marriage to have become a duty in order to save his property from a rebel nephew. How he goes wife-hunting to the Riviera, and his wooing to an accompaniment of Bacon's Essays Mr. White tells with much vivacity of ...

... By Mrs. Belloc- Lowndrs Heinemanji While the Royal Commission deliberates day by day on the cheapening of divorce, marriage remains the inevitable theme and the inevitable climax of that great modern force called the novel. Should our minds refuse to regard the novel as daily bread, it is at least its daily cake, and the never-failing plum of it is marriage. Therefore, though differing widely ...

... . By Frank A. SWINNERTON. {Chat to and Wtndus.) Do you know that Homer said the people of his time weren't so fine as those who were dead Mr. Swinnerton records one of his characters as saying. The remark may evoke in the reader's mind a wonder as to what Homer would have done with such a crowd as that which peoples I he Young Idea. Undoubtedly they would have been the slaves to polish the ...

... . BY C. N. and A. M. Williamson. (Ale t hue n, Mr. and Mrs. C. N. Williamson have been travelling in Africa. One of them (one wonders which) has gone note-book in hand, con scientiously registering the flush of skies and roses, the ivory and gold of villa or minaret, the flamboyant glory of tile and turban, the mystery of white walls and veiled women and the throbbing Sahara. Across this ...

... Downward A Slice of Life. By Maud Churton Braby. T. Werner Laurie.) Mrs. Maud Churton Braby dedicates her book, to her husband, prefixes it with a motto of Ruskin sentiment from Sesame and Lilies, and adds a preface by Mr. Edward Garnett. The reflection will intrude that this is a story which a husband might conceivably feel em barrassed to find thrust in his hand, that Mr. Ruskin would ...

... THO U --THE CAE A M ITT. THE average woman of the Land of the Lion and of the Sun is, it would seem, much as was the Thou of Omar's day: she may sit beside her lord, singing to turn his Wilderness into Paradise enow, the while he sips his cup of wine and breaks his loaf of bread; she may give him sons, that he may have light in his eyes; she may even amuse him, as did the many ladies ...