Three Girls in a Flat. By Ethel T. Heddle. (Gardner,
Murton,
and Co.)—The weak point in Miss Reddle's story is the character of Mabel. She is too openly selfish; people may be quite as much devoted as she was to her own pleasures and interests, but they disguise it more. She even lacks courtesy, for she never says or does anything that is meant to give pleasure. Apart from this, this is a really good tale. Janet is a fine, sturdy character, and Lil is drawn with discrimination. The pathos of the episode of Miss Trip is very effective indeed.—Merry Girls of England. By Mrs. L. T. Meade. (Cassell and Co.)—It is very probable that Mrs. Meade provokes her critics more than she displeases her readers by her very romantic plots. We do not quarrel with the idea of three girls making a farm pay. Farms, where people work hard themselves are not unlikely to pay. But the stern grand- mother, and the granddaughter whom she keeps, so to speak, under lock and key, the rope-ladder, the lady with the six dogs which one and all make friends at once with a stranger, the coincidences, all these things vex a critic's soul. Still, Mrs. Meade's book is very entertaining, and we can recommend it without the least mis- giving either that any one will find it dull, or that any harm can be got from it. On one point we must remonstrate. If Rosamond was but seventeen she could not possibly have obtained a reader's ticket for the British Museum. Mrs. Meade may defy, if she pleases, the probabilities, but she must not ignore this law of the universe.
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