CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
Minnie Hartford ; oY, " Others, not Self." By Miriam von Kranichfield-Gardner. (Trabner.)—This book is an odd mixture of scenes and sentiments of different kinds. It is a book with a purpose, and, indeed, with a strong religious purpose, and yet there figures in it a remarkable clergyman whose mission it seems to be to make love to every marriageable woman that he meets. He supplies the comic element in the story, and it is decidedly the best. To the trained novel-reader, the evolution of such plot as Minnie Hartford possesses is a surprise, if not a disappointment. He will naturally expect, from the chance meeting between Minnie and Empson in the beginning, that they will marry, and, for a time at all events, this idea seems to be entertained by Minnie herself. It is her part, however, to act as the guardian-angel of Empson's daughter after his death. Un- doubtedly the unselfishness claimed as the characteristic of this story is its note throughout—happily, pleasure and not pain is the outcome of such unselfishness—and makes it especially suitable as a gift-book. In spite of the disappointment already mentioned,. and the foreign accent which distinguishes the writer's style, Minnie Hartford is an excellent story of its kind.
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