WAYS AND DAYS OUT OF LONDON.
Ways and Days out of London. By Aida Roman de Milt. (Simpkin, Marshall and Co. 10s. 6d. net.)—The author and her friends intended to give a week to London ; they had promised a friend to go there first on their arrival in England, but they would be firm in refusing a longer stay. Nevertheless they spent eleven weeks there ; if London itself did not hold them all that time, there were places outside they had to visit, and that more than once. Everywhere they were delighted, except, indeed, at Henley. The exception is intelligible enough. One must have some special interest to make Henley desirable, that is, on a regatta day. The sights of the day are very difficult to see, and the crowd, concentrated as it is in a narrow space, unbearable. On a non-regatta day it is one of the sights of England. But Hampton Court, Richmond, Staines, the Thames Valley generally, St. Albans, Epping Forest, Dulwich, Greenwich, and other places charmed them. Of course they found a thorn now and then among the roses. The places where they lunched or dined did not always please. " We had become used to coarse napery and the spots of someone else's meal, also to the absence of serviettes" —we are somewhat surprised at this last complaint—but a dish of whitebait at the Old Ship at Greenwich did much to reconcile them. English readers ought certainly to like the book ; if it should occur to them that there is more history than they care for, let them remember that for our cousins on the other side history begins with the War of Independence. Miss de Milt is, we think, a little too severe on Lord Grimthorpe and his work at St. Albans.
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