A Maid o’ Dorset (CASSELL) can be recommended to anyone in need of light refreshment after a course of sterner literature.  Here we are back again in the world of small things; but if “M.E.  FRANCIS’S” theme is trivial there is no denying the art with which she handles it.  Just a quartette of characters occupies her rural stage—­an old grandmother, wise with the wisdom of years, her granddaughter, a middle-aged farmer and a young gipsy “dairy-chap.”  To the horror of her relations the Maid o’ Dorset conceives an infatuation for the gipsy, a clever rogue but no match for the grandmother.  I have met a good many farmers in my time, but never one so simple-minded as Solomon Blanchard.  It is all very Franciscan, and seems easy enough, but if you think, for that reason, that you could do it yourself, you couldn’t.  Its charm lies in its fragrance, and that is a quality which is not lightly come by.

* * * * *

OUR HELPFUL CONTEMPORARIES.

“The majority of the Russian soldiers are not so naif as, after having deposed the Tsar, to set to work for the King of Prussia.

“Note.—­’Travailler from le Rois des Prusses’ is the French colloquial equivalent for ‘To work for nothing.’”—­Pall Mall Gazette.

* * * * *

FAINT PRAISE.

“Commander Wedgwood said there was no newspaper in this country—­not even the Daily Mail—­which had not printed during the three years of war something to which objection could not be taken.”—­Daily Paper.