A Girl of To - day. By Ellinor Davenport Adams. (Blackie and
Son.)—Frances Morland and Austin, her brother, find them- selves in enjoyment of some modern advantages,—co-education, for instance, or something like it. Frances has a strong ambition to be abreast of her time, takes as a motto "Do good to others," and founds an altruistic society. This is admirable in theory, and her companions seem to appreciate her at her proper value. Then comes the trial, not an impossible one, but not such as the ordinary altruistic young woman might expect. A half-brother turns up, an excellent youth, but a blacksmith. As a matter of fact, half- brothers do not turn up in this way, but a novelist may be allowed to invent them. The situation thus produced is distinctly effec- tive. It is not the ambitious professor of the new morality, but the brother on whom she has hitherto looked down, that comes well out of the trial. There are plenty of good things in the book. The doctor and his son, and the philosophic Florry, besides the well-born young blacksmith, act their parts very well, and make a lively and not uninstructive little drama.
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