ng for,
I am more than delighted to present my acknowledgments. Mr. WHITE'S
subject is pat to the moment; moreover it is handled with such
unobtrusive skill that one absorbs a serious problem without being
anxiously conscious that all the play of intrigue and adventure is
covering a much deeper motive. When Mr. WHITE sent _Daniel Addington_
to Egypt to meet _Abdul Sayed_, who had been at Oxford and was a
leader of the Young Egyptian party, he gave himself a chance of which
he has taken full advantage. It is true that _Addington_ cried a pest
on all politics as soon as he fell a victim to the charms of _Ann
Donne_, a widow of excessive sprightliness; but by that time he was
too deeply enmeshed in the nets of intrigue to escape the just reward
of those amateurs who dabble with critical situations. _Abdul_
regarded him as a "milksop," and so he was from _Abdul's_ full-blooded
point of view; but I can also see in him a fresh testimony to the
courage of our race. For he married the widow _Ann_, and that was a
very plucky thing to do.

* * * * *

The only thing that I didn't like about _Molly, My Heart's Delight_
(SMITH, ELDER) was the title. But to allow yourself to be put off by
this will be to miss one of the pleasantest books of the season. What
I might call true fiction has always held a peculiar charm for me. In
the present work that clever writer, KATHARINE TYNAN, has been lucky
and astute enough to find an ideal heroine, ready made to her
hand, in the person of the charming woman who married DEAN DELANY.
Upon the basis of her diaries and letters the romance has been built
up, with the excellent result of a blend of art and actuality that
is most engaging. _Molly_ is the gayest of creatures in her girlhood.
We see her character develop gradually, tamed and half broken by
her unhappy first marriage (an episode exquisitely treated, so that
even the ugly side of it bears yet some precious jewels of charity
and long-suffering), tried in the fire of romantic adoration, and
finally reaching its appointed destiny in the comradeship with
"kind, tender, faithful D.D." Lovers of diaries and memoirs,
equally with those who like a graceful tale well told, will find what
they want here, from the moment when its heroine goes, a girl-bride,
to the romantically gloomy house of Rhoscrow, to that other moment
when the placid mistress of the Deanery hears of the death of
_Bellamy_, the man whom all her l