st. A dull coarse web her small life seems made of; but even from
its taskwork, which is undertaken for childhood itself, there are
glittering threads cast across its woof and warp of care. The
unconscious philosophy of her tricks and manners has in it more of the
subtler vein of the satire aimed at in the book, than even the voices of
society which the tale begins and ends with. In her very kindliness
there is the touch of malice that shows a childish playfulness familiar
with unnatural privations; this gives a depth as well as tenderness to
her humours which entitles them to rank with the writer's happiest
things; and though the odd little creature's talk is incessant when she
is on the scene, it has the individuality that so seldom tires. It is
veritably her own small "trick" and "manner," and is never mistakeable
for any one else's. "I have been reading," Dickens wrote to me from
France while he was writing the book, "a capital little story by Edmond
About--_The Notary's Nose_. I have been trying other books; but so
infernally conversational, that I forget who the people are before they
have done talking, and don't in the least remember what they talked
about before when they begin talking again!" The extreme contrast to his
own art could not be defined more exactly; and other examples from this
tale will be found in the differing members of the Wilfer family, in the
riverside people at the Fellowship Porters, in such marvellous
serio-comic scenes as that of Rogue Riderhood's restoration from
drowning, and in those short and simple annals of Betty Higden's life
and death which might have given saving virtue to a book more likely
than this to perish prematurely. It has not the creative power which
crowded his earlier page, and transformed into popular realities the
shadows of his fancy; but the observation and humour he excelled in are
not wanting to it, nor had there been, in his first completed work,
more eloquent or generous pleading for the poor and neglected, than this
last completed work contains. Betty Higden finishes what Oliver Twist
began.

DR. MARIGOLD AND TALES FOR AMERICA.

He had scarcely closed that book in September, wearied somewhat with a
labour of invention which had not been so free or self-sustaining as in
the old facile and fertile days, when his customary contribution to
Christmas became due from him; and his fancy, let loose in a narrower
field, resumed its old luxury of enjoyment. Here are