visited Oxford with her mother, Bessie, as she was always called, came running home, exclaiming, ’Oh, mamma, I have seen the Duchess of Kent, and she had on a brown silk dress.’  Her youthful admiration of Wordsworth was based chiefly upon his love of flowers, but also on personal knowledge.  When she was about ten years old, Wordsworth went to Oxford to receive the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the University.  He stayed with Dr. Gilbert, then Principal of Brasenose, and won Bessie’s heart the first day by telling at the dinner table how he had almost leapt off the coach in Bagley Wood to gather the blue veronica.  But she had a better reason for remembering that visit.  One day she was in the drawing-room alone, and Wordsworth entered.  For a moment he stood silent before the blind child, the little sensitive face, with its wondering, inquiring look, turned towards him.  Then he gravely said, ‘Madam, I hope I do not disturb you.’  She never forgot that ’Madam’—­grave, solemn, almost reverential.

As for the great practical work of her life, the amelioration of the condition of the blind, Miss Martin gives a wonderful account of her noble efforts and her noble success; and the volume contains a great many interesting letters from eminent people, of which the following characteristic note from Mr. Ruskin is not the least interesting: 

   DENMARK HILL, 2nd September 1871.

MADAM,—­I am obliged by your letter, and I deeply sympathise with the objects of the institution over which you preside.  But one of my main principles of work is that every one must do their best, and spend their all in their own work, and mine is with a much lower race of sufferers than you plead for—­with those who ’have eyes and see not.’—­I am, Madam, your faithful servant, J. Ruskin.

Miss Martin is a most sympathetic biographer, and her book should be read by all who care to know the history of one of the remarkable women of our century.

* * * * *

Ourselves and Our Neighbours is a pleasant volume of social essays from the pen of one of the most graceful and attractive of all American poetesses, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton.  Mrs. Moulton, who has a very light literary touch, discusses every important modern problem—­from Society rosebuds and old bachelors, down to the latest fashions in bonnets and in sonnets.  The best chapter in the book is that entitled ‘The Gospel of Good Gowns,’ which contains some very excellent remarks on the ethics of dress.  Mrs. Moulton sums up her position in the following passage:—­

The desire to please is a natural characteristic of unspoiled womanhood.  ‘If I lived in the woods, I should dress for the trees,’ said a woman widely known for taste and for culture.  Every woman’s dress should be, and if she has any ideality will be, an expression of herself. . . .  The true gospel of dress is that of fitness and taste.  Pictures are painted, and music