and their gradual influence on each other is indicated by a few subtle touches.  Then we have the curious story of Olga, Adrian Mowbray’s first love.  She is a wonderful and mystical girl, like a little maiden out of the Sagas, with the blue eyes and fair hair of the North.  An old Norwegian nurse is always at her side, a sort of Lapland witch who teaches her how to see visions and to interpret dreams.  Adrian mocks at this superstition, as he calls it, but as a consequence of disregarding it, Olga’s only brother is drowned skating, and she never speaks to Adrian again.  The whole story is told in the most suggestive way, the mere delicacy of the touch making what is strange seem real.  The most delightful character in the whole book, however, is a girl called Hilary Marston, and hers also is the most tragic tale of all.  Hilary is like a little woodland faun, half Greek and half gipsy; she knows the note of every bird, and the haunt of every animal; she is terribly out of place in a drawing-room, but is on intimate terms with every young poacher in the district; squirrels come and sit on her shoulder, which is pretty, and she carries ferrets in her pockets, which is dreadful; she never reads a book, and has not got a single accomplishment, but she is fascinating and fearless, and wiser, in her own way, than any pedant or bookworm.  This poor little English Dryad falls passionately in love with a great blind helpless hero, who regards her as a sort of pleasant tom-boy; and her death is most touching and pathetic.  Lady Augusta Noel has a charming and winning style, her descriptions of Nature are quite admirable, and her book is one of the most pleasantly-written novels that has appeared this winter.

Miss Alice Corkran’s Margery Merton’s Girlhood has the same lightness of touch and grace of treatment.  Though ostensibly meant for young people, it is a story that all can read with pleasure, for it is true without being harsh, and beautiful without being affected, and its rejection of the stronger and more violent passions of life is artistic rather than ascetic.  In a word, it is a little piece of true literature, as dainty as it is delicate, and as sweet as it is simple.  Margery Merton is brought up in Paris by an old maiden aunt, who has an elaborate theory of education, and strict ideas about discipline.  Her system is an excellent one, being founded on the science of Darwin and the wisdom of Solomon, but it comes to terrible grief when put into practice; and finally she has to procure a governess, Madame Reville, the widow of a great and unappreciated French painter.  From her Margery gets her first feeling for art, and the chief interest of the book centres round a competition for an art scholarship, into which Margery and the other girls of the convent school enter.  Margery selects Joan of Arc as her subject; and, rather to the horror of the good nuns, who think that the saint should have her golden aureole, and be as gorgeous and as ecclesiastical as bright paints and bad drawing can make her, the picture represents a common peasant girl, standing in an old orchard, and listening in ignorant terror to the strange voices whispering in her ear.  The scene in which she shows her sketch for the first time to the art master and the Mother Superior is very cleverly rendered indeed, and shows considerable dramatic power.