Only an Incident. By Grace Denis Litchfield. (G. P. Putnam's
Sons, New York).—We are glad to welcome one more of those short tales that come to us from across the Atlantic, fresh, healthy, and. racy of the soil. Quaint humour, subdued pathos, and a touch of irony are their chief "notes," while mixed with these are a practical common-sense and a " downright " view of things which distinguish them from our more sentimental or sensational lighter literature. It. is perhaps difficult, in reading the novels of other countries, tc. separate the freshness of the writer's point of view from the originality of his mind, and we are apt to attribute to the one what may be due to the other. The inner life of American society is so little known to us that the sayings and doings of the dwellers in that rising summer resort " Soppa," may amuse us more than it would if ‘c.Toppa" were in Yorkshire or Kent ; but still we think Miss Litch- field shows powers of shrewd observation and good-humoured satire, and a facility for sketching character that promises well for the future. Few readers will be quite unmoved by the effects on the sweetest of her two heroines, Phcebe Lane, of Only an Incident.
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