Dear. By the Author of " Tip-Cat." (A. D. Lanes
and Co.)—. The first half of this book is delightful. "Dear," who arrives at
years of discretion when she is eight, and takes upon herself, with distinguished success, the general management of a parish, fully deserves her name, and finds her way without fail to the reader's heart. The parson is, perhaps, too much of a " star- gazer " to be quite natural ; but we accept him for the excellent way in which he brings into relief the practical virtues of his little daughter. Children have to grow up, and growing up, they become very much more difficult subjects. The tale has, of course, to emerge into a love-story, but we think that something less repulsive than the intriguing mother who forces the girl into a marriage with her own epileptic son, in the vain attempt to secure a faithless admirer, might have been thought of. But there is great merit in some parts of the story. A specially pathetic part is where the parson imitates, with excellent results, the good Bishop in "Les Miserables."
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