The Captain's Toll - Gate. By Frank R. Stockton. (Cassell and Co.
6s.)—" He had not the heart to make his stories end unhappily," says Mrs. Stockton of her husband. It is an admirable trait, and we wish—art or no art—that it were more common among the writers of fiction. This simple desire to make his readers happy dominates the author's mind in this novel—the last, alas! that we shall have from his pen—as it dominated it in its delightful predecessors. Olive, the " Navy girl," so called because her father was a naval officer, comes to the conclusion that she ought to marry. She has no special preference, and so it was only right that various young men should be brought under her notice. Mr. Stockton performs the introductions with characteristic humour, and manages the somewhat complicated relations that are developed out of the situation with admirable skill. We do not know who is to be the happy choice, though a shrewd guesser in these matters will probably have fixed on the competitor who does not lead at the beginning of the race. In Mr. Stockton's stories there was never a real villain. The audacious Miss Maria Port shows us as near an approach to the character as he ever permitted himself to make.
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