Aunt Patty's Paying Guests. By Eglanton Thorne. (R.T.S. 2s.)—" Nan,"
having overworked herself, and being, therefore, ordered a change, goes to help her aunt in the country, and the aunt takes "paying guests." She has very good luck with them. The Professor, driven home from India by ill-health, is a quite exceptional "find." There is a rich American with his daughter, who have the habit of giving liberal presents. Even the lady who drops her " h's " and assumes a name that is not her own turns out to be an invaluable sick nurse. "Nan" is married, a lot which may or may not be better than reading for matriculation, and everything goes well.—The course of life does not run so smoothly in The Wonder Workers, by Ellinor Elliott (same publishers, 2s.) The young people who start what should be a self-supporting home in Suburbia find that their aim is harder of attainment than they had supposed. The book looks more like real life than the one just noticed, and if it is true that readers learn the lessons which it is meant that they should learn, ought to be more useful. Coolly, who is somewhat self- conceited, should be a salutary example, by the trouble which she brings on her own and her family's fortunes.—In Cold Blow Corner, by Phoebe Allen (S.P.C.X., 2s.), we have a carefully drawn picture of life which looks as if it had been studied from the real. As a tale it seems to be not particularly well constructed. The complication about Malchus Hell), and his supposed Wife is, to give an instance, not skilfully contrived. But the book is well worth reading.
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