Elizabeth Glen, M.B. By Annie S. Swan. (Hutchinson and Co.)—The
indefatigable author of " Aldersyde," who by this time must have written almost as much as Mrs. Oliphant or Miss Braddon, has found in the career of a lady doctor a thoroughly congenial subject. She is at her best when she pictures women as ministering angels, and we gather from her new book that it is the business of a lady doctor to be a ministering angel. Such, at all events, is the interpretation Elizabeth Glen places upon her duty when she has taken her degree of M.B , and settled down professionally in Bloomsbury. Perhaps Elizabeth would not have found it so easy to act up to such notions, had she not been independent of her profession in respect of money, and not been able to become, almost at any time—as indeed she does become in the long-run—Mrs. Keith Hamilton. Be that as it may, Doctor Glen ministers quite as often to minds as to bodies diseased, and would appear to have been welcomed very heartily in the character of maker-up of family disputes. A lady doctor of course sees the painful as quite as often as she sees the pleasant side of life ; and many of the stories here are, in consequence, somewhat tragic—such as "Mrs. Platt's Husband" and "A Gentle Life." Others again are very agreeable reading in every sense of the word, like " Her Own Romance " and " John Ran- some's Love-Story," in which is told with some quiet humour the old story of " She stoops to conquer "—and to be conquered. Mrs. Burnett-Smith's idea in this book is a good one, and she has worked it out in a manner that will be certain to gratify her very large constituency of readers.
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