2 DECEMBER 1899, Page 10

Twenty.siz Ideal Stories for Girls. (Hutchinson and Co. 5s.) —This

is an excellent and varied collection of stories, the great majority, if not all, of which have already done duty in magazines, by such well-known writers for girls as Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Mrs. Meade, "Rita," Sarah Doudney, Evelyn Everett. Green, and Emma Marshall. Some of the writers, such as Miss Fowler, do not appear to be quite as much at home in a short as in a long story, although there is undoubted pathos in the first —by Miss Fowler—entitled "The Man with the Transparent Legs." "Rita." on the contrary, comes out in a bright light in her pretty little story of "The Listener." The short historical romances which play a considerable part in the volume are remarkably good. All the stories, however, are of a type which is very much above the average; and the book, taking every- thing into consideration, is an admirable one to place in the hands of a girl who is not too young to understand in a vague way what lore means.