who wishes to expiate her crimes before leaving this mundane sphere.  One might readily expect some startling effects from the development of a plot thus removed from the haven of probabilities and set afloat in a sea of the wildest romance.  The Duchess Emilia’s repentance, however, seems to have ended the interest of her career, and her good deeds are appallingly dull; in fact, her whole personality thins away into insignificance.

“Across the Chasm” opens with fair promise, and our introduction to Virginia life and a talkative old negro “somewhar up in de nineties” is one which we should be glad to follow up by further acquaintance.  This serves, however, merely as preamble, and in the next chapter we are transported to a city called Washington, although for characteristic flavor it might as well be any other place, and we enter upon the events attending a young lady’s entrance into society.  This might all be very pretty and pleasant, except for the deadly seriousness of the author.  It is entirely frivolous and unimportant, but frivolity may be made charming and full of suggestion.  Points of etiquette and behavior engage the minds, hearts, and passions of the personages of the story.  It is a sort of animated illustration of the little book called “Don’t.”  For example, “Don’t leave your overcoat and rubbers in the hall when you go to make a call on a lady for the first time,” receives practical exemplification when Major King, a high-toned Southerner, with unbuttoned frock-coat and baggy trousers, pays a visit to the heroine.  He not only takes off his overcoat and rubbers, but tilts his chair, stays till midnight, and in every way calls down the wrath of that accomplished prig Mr. Louis Gaston, who is a high-toned Northerner.  This yawning gulf between the generous faults of the South and the fastidious Phariseeism of the North is the problem of the book.  The story is slight, wholly conventional, and rather commonplace, but it is gracefully told, and the conversations are not without interest.

Mr. Howard Pyle’s “Within the Capes” belongs to a widely different category from the pretty feminine Southern sketch, and is quite equal to the most insatiable requirements, containing half a dozen successful kinds of fiction in itself.  As a love-story, it is charming; as a sea- and shipwreck- and treasure-finding-story, it offers a fair challenge not only to Russell, but to Stevenson himself; while as a detective-story it is as good as most.  The adventures are related by the hero, one Captain Tom Granger, who toward the end of his long life feels a desire to have his strange history live in his own version, and not in the fables of the gossips.  A characteristic quaintness of expression gives validity to the narrative, with plenty of homely enforcement of Tom Granger’s wit and wisdom.

“One of the Duanes” offers a vivid picture of the life which goes on among the officers and officers’ wives and daughters who make up a little world within a world at our army and naval stations.  Mrs. Hamilton has depicted the interests and excitements, the gossip and the scandals, in a way which impresses the reader as being faithful and without exaggeration.  The story is interesting, and the book is thoroughly readable and enjoyable.