An Act in a Backwater. By E. F. Benson. (W.
Heinemann. 6s.)—Mr. Benson has given us a slight but pleasing study df life in a small Cathedral town. The brother and sister of a poor nobleman settle there, and introduce a novel element into the placid life of the place which gives many opportunities for comedy. The son of a Canon, an artist, and therefore a rebel against the tyranny of the Close, falls in love with the sister, and the progress of their romance is the main interest of the book. Almost the only disagreeable person is a retired Colonel of Volunteers, who is aptly described by one of the .characters as "the sort of man you find in a book on the Army by a lady." He is a snob and a coward, and provides the necessary relief from the intense amiability of the others. Jeannie Avesham is an attractive heroine, but the author is so anxious to show her goodness to the reader that he overdoes it and makes her a little theatrical. A deserted child and an epidemic of typhoid were surely enough, without afflicting a poor old spinster with cancer in order to bring out an unselfishness which was already sufficiently established. The best portrait seems to us to be the Canon's wife, Mrs. Collingwood, a type of the narrow good woman ; (jut the treatment, as in that of the others, is spoiled by an undue sentimentality. It is a pleasant, wholesome story, but it might - well have ended with Miss Avesham's engagement, for the later chapters read like the elaboration of a tale already told.
A Little Union Scout. By Joel Chandler Harris. (Duckworth
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