the Hotel Beauregard with skill and tact, while secluding herself from common eyes.  Destiny, however, as if eager at last to work in her favor, throws in her way a handsome young Swiss, Rudolf Engemann by name, a bank-clerk, with whom she falls deeply in love.  Everything is progressing to Madame’s content, when a little convent-girl, Marie Peyrolles, comes to Berne to live with her old aunt, a glove-seller, whose sign in the Spitalgasse gives the name to the story.  It would be a difficult matter to find a prettier piece of comedy than that which ensues upon Marie’s advent.  It is all simple, spontaneous, and, on the part of the actors, entirely serious, yet the effect is delightfully humorous.  Berne, with its quaint arcaded streets, its Alpine views, and its suburban resorts, makes a capital background, and gives the group free play to meet with all sorts of picturesque opportunities.  The story is told without any straining after climaxes, but with many felicitous touches that enhance the effect of every picture and incident.  In scene, characters, and plot, “At the Red Glove” offers a brilliant opportunity to the dramatist, and one is tempted to think that the story must have been originally conceived and planned with reference to the stage.

“Upon a Cast” is also a very amusing little story, and turns on the experiences of a couple of ladies who, with a longing for a quiet life,

    The world forgetting, by the world forgot,

settle on the North River in a town which, though called Newbroek, might easily be identified as Poughkeepsie.  Little counting upon this niche outside the world becoming a centre of interest or a theatre of events, the necessity of presenting their credentials to the social magnates of the place does not occur to these ladies,—­one the widow of a Prussian officer, and the other her niece, who have returned to America after a long residence abroad.  They prefer to remain, as it were, incognito; and, pried; into as the seclusion of the new-comers is by all the curious, this reticence soon causes misconstructions and scandals.  The petty gossip, the solemnities of self-importance, and the Phariseeism of a country neighborhood are very well portrayed, and, we fear, without any especial exaggeration.  The story is told with unflagging spirit, and shows quick perceptions and a lively feeling for situations.  Carol Lester’s friendship for Oliver Floyd while she is ignorant of the existence of his wife is a flaw in the pleasantness; but “Upon a Cast” is well worthy of a high place in the list of summer novels.

Although “Down the Ravine” belongs to the category of books for young people, the story is too true to life in characters and incidents, and too artistically handled, not to find appreciative readers of all ages.  In fact, we are inclined to discover in the book stronger indications of the author’s powers as a novelist than in anything she has hitherto published.  “Where the Battle was Fought,” in spite of all its fine scenes, had not the same sustained interest nor the same spontaneity.  The plot of the present story is excellent, and the characters act and react on each other in a simple and natural way.  The youthful Diceys, with the faithful, loyal Birt at their head, are a capital study; and from first to last the author has nowhere erred in truth or failed in humor.