Other tales for children are :—Scarlet Anemones, by L. T.
Meade (Hodder and Stoughton), a story of English life in a chalet near the Pyrenees ; Slyboots, and other Farmyard Chronicles. By Beata Francis. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—Birds and beasts confabulate in Miss Francis's stories in a most delightful way. We should say, perhaps, that for quite young readers they mast be judiciously edited. It is true that farmyards are not governed by poetical justice, any more than is the world outside. But it may not be well to let this fact make itself known to children too abruptly. The present writer would not for the world shock the tender hearts of some little folks that he knows, by relating to them how the innocent mouse Downey came to a cruel end, and the wicked Sharpset escaped, thanks to the very ill-practices for which he ought to have been punished. In fact, there is a certain cynicism in some of the stories which would not be at all wholesome for young readers, if they could assimilate it, a thing happily doubtful. But for older people the book is nothing less than delightful. On the whole, perhaps Miss Tabitha, the cat, who thinks the farmyard her own, is the most amusing person, though, for moral qualities, the humbler animal who applies for the place of an
undercat, to do the blackbeetling," is certainly to be preferred.
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