eter qualities in her other writings. We should
be inclined to rank _The Honorable Miss Ferrard_ as an artistic rather
than a realistic book, though it is based on the same soundness of
observation as its predecessor. It is an episode, suggestive, rather
analytic in treatment, with the freshness of a first impression--_le
charme de l'inacheve_. The heroine is a singularly original, fresh and
attractive conception. The book deals almost wholly with the outside
aspects of things, with picturesque rather than moral traits, though a
breath of feeling true and sweet is wafted across it and heightens its
fine vague beauty.

A deeper humanity is shown in the short story _Flitters, Tatters and the
Counsellor_, which made its first appearance in this magazine in
January, 1879. This sketch gained a quicker popularity than her longer
novels, and drew forth warm eulogies from critics so far apart in
standard as Ruskin, Leslie Stephen and Bret Harte.

_Christy Carew_, in its picture of two middle-class Catholic families in
Dublin, takes us back to the society described in _Hogan, M.P._, but its
range is narrower and its theme rather social than political. It is a
softer and more attractive book than _Hogan, M.P._, though, like that
novel, it is devoted to a realistic picture of life. Miss Laffan's
characters have the merit of being always real. They are often types,
but they are never mere abstractions. Whatever their importance or
qualities, they stand firmly on their feet, are individual and alive.
Her men are drawn with a vigor which ought to ensure them from the
reproach of being ladies' men. They may display traits of weakness, but
these are due to no faltering on the author's part. In _Christy Carew_
the men are in a minority as far as minuteness of portraiture goes, and
the most elaborate touches are bestowed on the two young girls who act
as heroines, for the one is as prominent as the other. Christy and her
friend Esther O'Neil present two types of girlhood. Esther, _devote_ and
gentle, is a very tender, lovable figure, but there is perhaps more
skill shown in the more contradictory character of Christy, a pretty
girl addicted to flirting, keenly intelligent and impatient of the
restraints and inconsistencies of her religious teaching, yet with an
earnestness which makes her feel the emptiness of her life and vaguely
seek for something higher. When each of the friends is sought by a
Protestant lover their different ways of