sical
exuberance and innocent carelessness of social decencies are such a
manifest result of her environment.

These four form the nucleus of the plot, and have to do with the
destinies of other characters, all equally pronounced types. Adams,
the young lawyer, is interesting in his defense of old Karl, on trial
for counterfeiting; the Vandermere and Storrs families might be
portraits drawn from our own acquaintance; more's the pity.

But the story is, nevertheless, far from commonplace. It will not make
us laugh, yet will keep us absorbed till the last page, and we lay it
down feeling that we have seen certain phases of life with some
intense lights thrown upon them.

* * * * *

Baroness Von Hutten's poor little "Pam," Dodd, Mead & Co., with her
contradicting intensity and innocence, and her distorted notions of
matters social, is as interesting a study as can be found in recent
fiction. It might be as well not to leave her in the path of
conventionally-brought-up young persons who have not her
antecedents--but their elders will understand her as a product, and
perhaps even perceive that she points a moral while adorning a tale.
Pam is the child of a mercenary English girl, well born, who has fled
to the Continent with her lover, an opera singer, who has left his
wife. Contrary to the usual result of such unions, the two are
completely happy in one another; too much so to bestow any special
attention on Pam, except the explanation to her, in most explicit
terms, of her social limitations as their offspring. Her wanderings
from one situation to another with a maid and a monkey, her shrewd
childish distrust of the conventional virtues, her slow awakening to
the absorbing passion for the man she loves, and her final realization
of the barriers which stand between them, make a strong story,
absorbing in its interest.

* * * * *

Two more detective stories are "The Amethyst Box" and "The Ruby and
the Caldron," by Anna Katharine Green, the latter published in the
same volume with another short story, "The House in the Mist," by the
same author.

The two volumes are the first of a series which the
publishers--Bobbs-Merrill Company--call "The Pocket Books," designed
to represent "the three aspects of American romance--adventure,
mystery and humor."

They are happily named, for they are small volumes, which can be
conveniently slipped into the pocket and