Short Stories for Short People. By Alicia Aspmwall. (I. F.
Shaw and Co.)—Mr. T. W. Higginson commends this collection of stories to the public, and with very good reason. They are delightful extravagances ; they have no moral except, one might say, the very general moral that ought to be found everywhere,— that good boys and girls have the best of it ; there is no satire in them, no reference to questions social or political, but pure fun, and, as they say on the other side of the Atlantic (whence the stories come), very good at that.—Elsie's Magician. By Fred Whishaw. (W. and R. Chambers.)—We cannot say that this story has no moral. It has an excellent one, to the effect that where there is a will there is a way. It is true that Elsie was a pretty little girl and had, unknown to herself, a very rich grandfather, both things that have a tendency to bring about happy results. Still, we cherish the belief that she would have found a way to help her mother even if this one had not been opened for her. But a more important point as regards the merits of the book, from our present point of view, is that though there is a moral it is made up for by some quite first-rate nonsense. 'Paul' the dog, and 'Robinson' the cat, and 'Mozambique' the canary, who "can't be bothered to love anybody—it is always tea-time and there are seeds to be cracked "—with the family of dolls, headed by the un- sympathetic Beatrice, make as much and as good nonsense as one could desire to find anywhere.
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