STORIES FOR GIRLS.
THE amount of new fiction published especially for girls is large, but not so abundant as the boys' portion. This cannot be because there are fewer girl readers, but we suspect that girls are more content to read the stories intended for their brothers than boys are to read their sisters' books. If this is so, we also have a clue that may explain why some books mainly about girls are as full of exciting adventure as any boys' book. There is a plentiful issue of books for both sexes, which we can only recommend generally as being wholesome stories, illustrated and very cheap at half-a-crown or less—for instance, those from the trustworthy sources of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Religious Tract Society as well as from private firms. We must confine our- selves to the rather more ambitious volumes. The majority of them is concerned with young people who find themselves happily engaged to be married at the end of the tale. Quite distinct is the minority, dealing with school or schoolroom life. The two things, lessons and love-making, never go happily together.
As an example of the up-to-date exciting story we may take Miss Bessie Marchant's The Heroine of the Ranch (Blackie and Son, 5s.). The scene is on the confines of civilisation in South America, where a Scotsman has a horse-breeding ranch and his daughter has great adventures, particularly with horse- thieves. Her family and the other characters are somewhat sketchy, but they work together at the end. —In The Loyalty of Hester Hope (same publishers, 3s. 6d.) the same author whisks us away to the far west of Canada, where we see the trials of young women, styled "lady helps," on a remote farm. The two girls come well out of misfortunes and great difficulties, and find satisfactory bridegrooms.— In a third story, for younger readers, The Adventurous Seven (same publishers, 2s. 6d.), a young family makes a surprising journey to Australia in search of its father, and incidentally to do some empire-building. The children meet with much kindness and some half-seriously told adventures on their way. — Australia is also the scene of Gladys and Jack (Henry Frowde and Hodder and Stoughton, 5s.), by J. M. Whitfield, whose country it is. The story tells of the fun, high spirits, and love affairs of young people on neighbouring bomesteads.—There are two books in this class by Katharine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson), and girls are fortunate when so charming and experienced a story-teller writes for them, and their elders will probably borrow the volumes. The Daughter of the .Monor (Blackie and Son, 6s.) is a story which rambles very pleasantly through country life in England. The heroine, the daughter of a tiresome and useless father, is adopted by a splendid old lady and marries the heir of her foster-mother's home. —In A Girl of Galway (same publishers, 3s. 6d.) Mrs. Hinkson takes us back to Ireland. Though it is perfectly suitable for girls, the story might equally well have been published as an ordinary novel. The heroine tries to heal family feuds, and with the help of accidents as well as of her own charms she succeeds at last. There are some good characters here and so much cheerfulness and open air that the old misanthrope of a grandfather in his dilapidated house does not seem too grini.—The work of another Irish writer, Rosa Mulholland (Lady Gilbert), should always be welcome to girls. Her Old School Friends (same publishers, 6s.) tells of two mothers who had been at school together. Neither is attractive, but the rich one takes up the daughter of the poor one, only to drop her when she attracts the son of the house, annoys the daughter, and becomes deaf. Then the heroine goes to an old school friend of her own in Ireland. There she tries to patch up a family quarrel, and both girls become happily engaged.—Miss Marjory Royce gives us a glimpse of a model school with a perfect headmistress, where the sixth form was "allowed to look at the Spectator every week after the teachers had read it." We fear there is a subtle meaning in the words "look at" as contrasted with "read," for when Dinah Leaves School (Hodder and Stoughton, 5s.) the trouble is that she has no domestic sympathies. She wants to "do something," to teach for choice, and cannot feel interest in her rather dull parents and her sister in her engagement and its rupture. She is horribly self-centred for a time, but eventually learns something of values, and is precipitated by the author into what should be a happy engagement.—Cousin Betty, by Geraldine Mockler (T. Nelson and Sons, 3s. 6d.), is a very cheerful story of a charm- ing heroine who inherits the fortune that three other girls had reason to expect. She wins their prejudiced hearts with diffi- culty and by innocent deceit, and is allowed to give them the help they had refused. The love interest is subordinate and the characters are clearly distinguished.—Miss Maude Leeson presents to us a jolly colony of cousins, The Fords of Hilton Langley (Blackie and Son, 5s.). After some hints of tragic gloom in connexion with two neighbours, and a pleasantly described interlude in Germany, the story ends with wedding bells in anticipation for most of the marriage- able'charseters.—The Story Book Girls, by C. G. Whyte (Henry Frowde and Hodder and Stoughton, 3s. 6d.), is also of country life as enjoyed by an entertaining family with their relatives and neighbours, several of whom " sort themselves" appropriately at the end.
Of school stories one of the best is That Aggravating School Girl, by Grace Stebbing (James Nisbet and Co., 3s. 6d.). It describes the contest between an over-worried mistress, who shows her worst side, and a delightful, wild girl of strong character, who sometimes talks really cleverly and amusingly. The broken-spirited dunce of the school is too painfully meek and pious.—The Youngest Girl in the Fifth, by Angela Brazil (Blackie and Son, 3s. 6d.), tells of a clever girl at home and at school, where she gets into a bad set when moved up. After much trouble she triumphs eventually.—The same writer's The Leader of the Lower School (same publishers, 2s. 6d.) has rather more excitement in it. A girl who has travelled far and wide with her father asserts her faculty for leadership. By accident it is supposed that her father has deserted her ; this fact and mistaken punishment lead her to run away, but all ends well. The politics of the school are well described.—For younger readers, Trixie and Her Trio, by L. E. Tiddeman (Jarrold and Sons, 2s. 6d.), is a cheerful tale of children's holidays in the country. The one prig among them is cured of her snobbery, and there is plenty of harmless mischievousness.
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