3 DECEMBER 1904, Page 9

A School Champion. By Raymond Jacberns. (W. and R. Chambers.

3s. 6d.)—Tekla Marsden and her sister and shadow Freda go to school, and find their romantic ideas of being and doing good failing under the practical tests of obedience and diligence. This is a good and wholesome story, told in a pleasing fashion.--.4 Family Grievance, by the same author, is also, in a large degree, a school story, and deserves the same praise. The author's name is favourably known to many readers for a faculty of putting things in a humorous way, and these books will not diminish her reputation.—Petronelia, by Mrs. L. T. Meade (W. and R. Chambers, 8s. 6d.), is yet another school story, and, as one might expect from the author's name, a decidedly romantic tale. One cannot kelp feeling thankful that girls in real life do not do the strange things that we are accus- tomed to on paper and in prink—witness the way in which about. The volume contains a second story, The Coming of Polly.

—A Morn Tomboy (same author and publishers, 5s.) is on the eame apparently inexhaustible theme. We are invited this

time to be present at the opening of a school, a sort of private affair which Mrs. Merriman sets up to eke out her husband's failing income. There are seven girls to begin with, but the heroine is a later introduction. The story is not, we think, one of Mrs. Meade's happiest efforts.