Lille and Ruth. By Helen Hays. (Clark and Co.)—Lillo is
an Italian child whom some strange chance has brought to the cottage of a New England fishermen. There a hereditary taste for art develops itself, somewhat to the disturbance of his foster-parents. A wealthy Bostonian finds him, and wishes to educate him; but the lad sees his duty in the home of his adoption. Genius, however, finds a way somehow, and he is not baulked of his career. The story has the merits and defects so common in books of its class. The introductory chapters, describing the young artist in his very prosaic home, are excellent ; when we get fairly involved in the story, the charm, for the moat part, disappears. Still, it is never entirely lost, and Lille and Ruth, as it is a perfectly wholesome story, so, in point of con- ception and execution, is above the average.
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