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Mr. J. RATH has really discovered a new type of heroine, new at least this side the Atlantic.  His farm-bred Sadie, a Buffalo shirt-packer, classifies men by the sizes of their shirts, has no use for any swain with a chest measurement under forty, and eventually in a most original way finds her hero in Mister 44 (METHUEN), an enormous Canadian engineer and sportsman.  She is no chicken herself and has a passion to be free of the city and out in the great open. Sadie is more than big; she is beautiful, burnished-copper-haired, sincere and kind, and, though I think the author “gets this over” quite well I liked her best before she found her man and her Robinson Crusoe adventures among the islands of Ontario, and was giving back chat to the little foreman in the factory.  Here she is a pure delight; and in these days, when a knowledge of the American language may come in handy at any moment, this amiable romance may well be recommended as an attractive manual of first-aid in the matter.

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Without professing to be a student of Mrs. DIVER’S books I know enough about them to be worried by the commonplaceness of Unconquered (MURRAY).  Like so many other authors she has succumbed to the lure of the War-novel.  There may be a public for tales of this kind, but I have not yet read one that approaches artistic success.  Here we are spared nothing. Sir Mark Forsyth goes to France in the early days, is first of all reported “missing, believed killed,” and then officially reported “killed.”  Of course he turns up again, but such a physical wreck that the minx whom he was to have married breaks off the engagement.  Naturally the sweet girl, friend of Mark’s childhood, undertakes to fill the gap.  The minx, Bel Alison, is so scathingly drawn that from sheer perversity I found myself hunting for one good point in her character; but without a find.  On the other hand, Lady Forsyth, Mark’s mother, and a quiet, capable man called Macnair, are admirably put before us.  Yet at best there remains the conviction that the War is terribly real that these attempts to romance about it are almost bound to be as superficial as they are superfluous.

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[Illustration:  DURING THE RAID. Disappointed Player.  “HARD LINES!  I HAD AN EASY FIVE SHOT THAT WOULD HAVE RUN ME OUT.”]

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    “Lost, between Ryde Pier and Southsea, Black Satin Bag, containing
    keys and eyeglasses.  Reward given.”—­Portsmouth Paper.

A chance for the local mine-sweepers.