A Little Primrose Knight. By " A Primrose Dame." (W.
H. Allen and Co.)—We cannot say that the story is commended to us by its title or by the nom de plume assumed by the author. As a matter of fact, however, politics have not much to do with it. Quite apart from them, it is a most interesting little tale. Bobbie is a fine young fellow who has the spirit and, what is more rare, the endurance of the best type of English boy. He rescues from drowning a little child, and is quite naturally disdainful when he is told that he has succoured a fair damsel in distress. "The washerwoman's baby isn't a fair damsel," he says ; " she's only two years old." And then he is the means of winning the election for his uncle by a single vote. The scene in which old "Methuselah " promises to put his cross against the Colonel's name is very good. Those Were the Days. Poem by Mrs. Tom Kelly, Illustrated by Tom Kelly. (Dean and Son.)—A sumptuous volume, a little out of pro- portion, we cannot but think, to its contents. Verses of this kind,— "Though in soft summer nights, when we gazed up on high, Some problems (unsolved still) we found in the skis And some by-and-by as perplexing as they,
Fate herself demonstrated and solved in rough way. But I've kept our old faiths through all the long while, Some I might have forsworn for the sake of your smile," might have been content with a humbler setting. We do not admire the faces and figures of the pictures, but some of the foliage is more pleasing.
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