The Plower of Gala Water. By Amelia E. Barr. (Sampson
Low, Marston, and Co.)— Katharine Janfarie is the step-daughter of a very self-opinionated and cantankerous laird, Brathous by name, for such is the title of his estate. With her Richard Mowbray, from Westmoreland, falls in love at first sight. She has another suitor, from her own neighbourhood, a good fellow, as be proves himself, but not of the finer clay out of which Mowbray is made. A pretty love-story, not without moving changes of fortune, is made out of these circumstances, helped, as they are, by the presence of Katharine's friend, Jessy Telfair, and her father, the minister of Kirtlehope. A pretty story it is, and Miss Barr tells it well, and would have told it better if she could have made her style a little less "high-falutin'," Here is a specimen. "She paled divinely and drew a little away. But his eyes were upozr her,—eyes full of piercing light, yet languishing and lengthen- ing like the eyes of love. Virgin passion burns to whiteness, and the lightning pallor of Katharine's cheeks was that completer steel of saintly chastity' that 'angels Jacky." The scene in America where Mowbray finds his missing brother, who might have claimed the estate, is so good that we must specially men- tion it. Some shorter stories complete the volume.—A Ringby Lass, with other Stories. By Mary Beaumont. (J. M. Dent.)—The "Ringby lass," a word of praise not to be surpassed, as " Tummaa Bates" thinks and says in his racy Yorkshire, is wooed and won by Mark Tennant, who has been brought into her neighbourhood by railway work. A fine, high-spirited girl she is, and he is not unworthy of her. Here, too, we have some shorter tales making- up the volume.
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