The Way They Loved at Grimpat. By E. Rentoul Esler.
(Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.)—We opened this volume of " Village Idylls " with misgivings. The pessimistic fashion which controls literature nowadays makes such things very painful reading. " Village idylls" are commonly " village trage- dies." Of course they are not such in fact ; they are common- place and material ; but, for the most part, they are nothing worse. Miss (?) Baler, possibly, idealises them. But she succeeds in making an agreeable volume. Perhaps " Linnel's Lover " is the best of the nine. The most pathetic is " Good-for- Nothing ; " the most humorous, " Betty's Luck." Betty is indeed a genuine rustic figure. One curious thing about village life— as it is at present in England—is that the village maiden scarcely exists,—at home. She is universally in service. It is the rarest of sights to see a girl over fifteen at home in a cottage, excepting by the accident of being out of place.
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