re
at a heavy discount.

Nor is it understandable why the newly rich of the far West are such
ignorant boors, while the same articles at the East are refined and
intellectual. We observe that the difference between the two is to have
the Western man spell his words as they are pronounced, while all the
correct spelling is given to the Eastern gentleman. This is scarcely
fair to the citizen of means from a Texan ranch or a Nevada mine. But
the dramatic effect is good, so we must not complain.

Allowing for these slight defects, _That Girl from Texas_ is a well-told
story, and, like the preceding, _His Way and Her Will_, is a healthy
book. There is nothing in either to shock even the sense of propriety,
let alone morals, and both give evidence of a talent for story-telling
that if properly cultivated will make the fair authors famous.

Some years since Theophile Gautier published a strange story of
transformation in which the soul of the lover was passed to the body of
a husband, and the inner life of the husband transferred to the body of
the lover. Morbidly-inclined readers are referred to this ingenious but
disgusting work for entertainment. The author of _The Princess Daphne_,
too modest to put his or her name upon the title-page (Belford, Clarke &
Co.), to accommodate morbid readers unacquainted with French, has
translated Gautier's plot and adapted it to American taste by making the
transferee female instead of the coarser sex. "Whether it was worth
while to go through so much for so little," as Sam Weller's school-boy
remarked when he got done with the alphabet, "is a matter of taste." We
think, in the case of _The Princess Daphne_, that it was not.

THE QUEEN OF THE BLOCK.

BY ALEXANDER L. KINKEAD.

CHAPTER I.

THE QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY BALL.

Bill Kellar played the first fiddle and called the figures; Blind Benner
was second fiddle, and Hunch Blair blew the cornet. A curious trio they
were.

William Kellar had come from an Eastern city, where he had been the
leader of a successful orchestra. The noises of the streets had proved
too much for his sensitive hearing, and he had fled from them to the
stillness of the forest. He lived at the foot of Coot Hill, where he was
frequently visited by Blind Benner, a young man to whom he had taken a
fancy and whom he taught to play on the violin.

Blind Benner had a Christian name, but the people of Three-Sisters did
not know what it was, and they always spo