13 JANUARY 1894, Page 26

The Little Squire. By Mrs. Henry de la Pasture. (Cassell

and Co.)—This is a somewhat commonplace story which yet contrives to be readable, thanks chiefly to the lifelike sketch of the little heroine. A lonely, imaginative, tender-hearted child, loyal to its beliefs and affections, has seldom been better drawn. Cicely, too, has a great look of nature, though it is not one that pleases. But the tale itself it is impossible to praise. So very trans- parent an adventurer as Claude Vernon is too much for one's

faith. And how did the little heroine come to find "little white stars of the common anemone" when "everything was burnt and dry with the long heat," and the "June sun" had been burning her brain ?