This is a deep, an impressive, psychological study. Without plot, without variety or number of situation, "The Rescue" will, 'tis true, make little, if any, appeal to the popular imagination. We do not anticipate seeing it on the list of best-selling books; nevertheless, to the thinker, to the student of human nature and to the lover of real literature, the book will prove something of a revelation and much of a treasure!

Miss Sedgwick knows humanity, knows it in all its subtle, changeful, unaccountable and mysterious moods. More than that she possesses the skill to realistically embody her knowledge of man and woman in a form to appear life-like and convincing. She displays little ingenuity or invention, but we cannot think that this is because she is devoid of those qualities, but rather that her profound analysis of the characters leaves little room for construction and introduction of novel episodes. There is a quiet tragedy, however, that impresses; there is a pathos that touches; there is dramatic height reached, now and then, that betray in the author's genius those attributes and powers that make the brilliant novelist. Note this, does it not mark a dramatic period?

She looked at him, half scoffing, yet half believing. "Englishmen don't fight duels." "This one will."

"He might kill you."

"I might kill him; you would have to take the risk."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Bien! I understand, too. I will fulfill myself." She half rose then sank again. "How much?” He mentioned the sum-not a small one. "Make it two-thirds," said Claire, keeping her dilated eyes upon him with an effect of final defiant revelation.

steadied voice of one who does not dare hurry indecision. Yet, even now, she did

"Two-thirds, then," he assented, in the

not rise.

"One more condition, please. I do not see my mother again. Let us say, if you like, that I am ashamed to meet her."

"She has not been told-of this."

"Yes, she has," said Claire. "I wrote and told her." There was the satisfaction of achievement in the way she said it. "O, yes; she knows."

"Yet, even after that-your vengeance, I suppose I hardly dare make the promise for her-she can forgive-even this.”

"Ah," and the hoarse note was in Claire's voice, "but I can't take forgiveness from her. I have left the world where such episodes as this need forgiveness. Tolerance is now all that I will endure-and she will never tolerate. No; I will not come with you-I will not return to M. Daunay and to respectability-unless you promise that I shall never see her again."

"I promise it, then, if it is the condition." "You accept? Bien!" Claire sprang up, and ripping an illustration from a magazine she scribbled on the blank back: "Have decided, after all, that I won't come," transfixed it with a hat-pin to the cushioned back of Lord Epsil's vacated seat. . . .

And does not the style show literary grasp and literary finish? Miss Sedgwick truly promises to become a second Eliot. In human interest she surpasses Mrs. Wharton; in skill of character portrayal she excels Mrs. Atherton; in polish, culture and literary art, she ranks along with Mr. Howels.

From "Sarita the Carlist"

Mr. Pidgin continues to be disappointing. The pleasure excited by his first book, "Quincy Adams Sawyer," has not a second time been experienced. His latest work is a temperance story, the hero of which is a youthful clergyman whose self-sacrificing qualities are rather pronounced for these disallusioning, prosaic days. One thing, however, the author seems determined to force upon us and that is the sincerity of poor missions, Salvation armies, etc., as opposed to the hypocrisy and lack of principle existing in wealthy, fashionable churches. The dissipation of rich, young New Yorkers is strikingly contrasted with the temperate, celibate life of the poor, but earnest, clergyman. How the first leads to despair and destruction, the second to happiness and power, is strongly shown.

Without a doubt the book has been written with a noble-minded, lofty purpose, but the world to-day does not welcome the book with so obvious a moral, and it is probable that "Stephen Holton" will find but scant appreciation outside the Sunday schools.

"Never let me tag a moral to a story,' is Dr. Van Dyke's prayer, and a wise one it is, indeed. Mr. Pidgin has the qualities of the novelist. His style is firm and direct; he is skillful in creating backgrounds and situations; he is sufficiently acquainted with humanity to be able to draw men and women who force their reality upon us. But he is an idealist. He has his ideal of a hero and he has his ideal of a villain. The former is akin to perfection; the latter is sadly antipodal. When brought together they shock us by their contrast and-we do not like to be shocked. Somehow, Stephen is too good to arouse our sympathies. Charlie is too bad to win our appreciation. After all, the best characters in the book are

Jethro Judkins and Chester Lethbridge, who make a decided approach to realistic, pleasing manhood. In Grandma Crane and 'Ram we find two interesting, ancient characters, and in their conversations discover something of the dry humor and sympathetic wit that delighted us in "Quincy Adams Sawyer."

There are still remaining a few pages of our history as an English colony upon which the novelist has not yet laid violent hands. They are rapidly becoming fewer, however, and to atone for the decrease higher and higher grows the pile of historical fiction dealing with the period or some certain phase of it. "The Coast of Freedom" is at present on the top of the pile, but such sovereignty is brief, and lasts but a season or so at the best. It is a good tale, too-as such tales gotreating of the madness of gloomy, witch-ridden Boston at the end of the seventeenth century and her struggles in the fetters of delusion and superstition. The love story of Roger Verring

and the Little Maid, interwoven with this narrative of cruelty and black horror, is the more thoroughly and touchingly sweet by contrast.

Roger, while a lad, shipped on a voyage to England, overhears a plot for the capture and murder of a certain maid, by a kinsman interested to secure her wealth. Later he learns of the

plot's partial success, for, while accompanying Captain William Phipps on that historical voyage to the West Indies for the recovery of the sunken Spanish galleons and their treasure, he aids in the rescue of the maid from the pirate ship of her captor. She is taken to the province for protection,

but in that day it was a sorry refuge, and a still worse fate awaits her. Her un-Puritan words and ways, as also jealousy aroused in the heart of a certain one of the Boston maids, by reason of her beauty and superior charm, set the townsfolk against her, and an easy, almost an involuntary, revenge --such was the temper of the time-is at hand. She is accused of witchcraft and very nearly condemned, but saved by the action of the Governor, now Sir William Phipps, and spirited away by Roger, himself under accusation for defending her. With the passing of the delusion and the confound

ing of the plot against the Little Maid, the tale ends happily, as a love tale should, and as it is a pity that more do not. In passing, it should be said that "The Coast of Freedom" contains some remarkably good writing, notably in the trial scene, where the interest is wrought to a pitch of dramatic intensity, and yet nowhere slips from the controlling hand of the writer. She is good at description, too, as the first third of the book, portraying that long and difficult sea voyage, the tropic heat, the labors, the discouragements, the meeting, the final, well-deserved success, all amply testify.-H. T. P.

pleasant and oppressive MacDonald. The author's attitude is impartial, and he knows, in spite of some lapses of taste, how to tell a story. The book is published as a companion to Richard Bagot's two novels of like sort and shows so many points of likeness to Mr. Bagot's work as to suggest him as its writer. If this is true, then "The Catholic" is Mr. Bagot's most effective and brightest book. It is, at any rate, an interesting narrative and a convincing picture of Catholic society in England. -Philadelphia Press.

NOVELS OF

WESTERN LIFE

Mr. Willis George Emerson bids fair to be a desirable acquisition to our list of able American novelists. His first book, "Buell Hampton,"is delightfully thrilling and dramatic and abounding in unexpected situations.

situations

and in stirring incidents. The work is not pure fiction. Of it the author says, "So much is based upon fact that I scarcely know where history ceases and fiction begins." Many of the characters have been taken direct from