The Kidnapping of Ettie, and other Tales. By " Brown Linnet."
(Seeley and Co. 5s.)—These eleven stories are of a somewhat animal quality. They are wholly unconventional ; the figures in them are not cut to the familiar patterns to which we are so used. What a wonderful old woman, for instance, is "The Snarer " ! There are readers to whom we should really be afraid to recommend it ; for Betsey Blythe is a poacher, and a clever one at that, and she positively has the laugh on her side, though she is committed to prison. Nevertheless, "Brown Linnet" may be trusted to say the right thing. If her stories are not exactly what one would expect, they are all the better for that. They make the reader think, and quite possibly suggest to him to look a little deeper into things than he has been wont to. "Grass Ring" is the best thing in the book, hardly suited, it may be, for all young readers, but any one, cui meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan, will understand it and admire it. The illustrations are photographs, and very good, too.
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