ll contrasted, utterly untrammelled, and each
in possession of a will and a way of her own, materials for a romance
are not hard to find; and in telling the story of the Heathcotes Miss
Carey seems to have jotted down a series of events exactly as they fell
out in actual life. There is plenty of sentiment, but its expression is
dealt out with a sparing hand; there are pretty sylvan scenes, and the
wood-paths, the warm homesteads, the meadows and fields, all enter into
the story and make a pleasant part of it. If "Barbara Heathcote's Trial"
has no leading motive as strong and as universally interesting as the
author's former book, "Not Like Other Girls," it is, to our thinking,
quite as pleasant and readable, and will no doubt enjoy its
predecessor's popularity.

Romance has done much good work in the way of laying bare men's faults,
hypocrisies, and evil lusts, and if Mormonism is actually on the
increase among us there is good reason for a novel like "The Bar
Sinister," which tells us the story of certain converts to the peculiar
tenets of the saints and introduces us into the every-day life of Salt
Lake City. That our families and our institutions are in peril from this
monstrous and ridiculous evil it would not be easy for us to believe.
Yet it is impossible to read this book without a conviction that the
author could easily substantiate his facts by proofs, and that
intelligent men and women have been and are still being led away into
the heresy. The incidents of the story are, however, calculated to shock
and repel the reader, who rises from its perusal sick and indignant as
much from having been confronted with such personages and their doings
as from the fact that such people are in existence. The author has
without doubt enjoyed the advantage of a flesh-and-blood acquaintance
with leaders of the faith who talk unctuously of "Class No. 1, 2, 3, 4,"
etc.; and, besides actual knowledge, there is strong feeling and earnest
principle behind the whole narrative.

"Pine-Cones" is a pleasant story for young people, telling the
adventures of a party of boy and girl cousins making a visit among the
great pine woods of Maine. There is plenty of open air in the book,
bright talk, and earnest stories told round the fire.

"An Old Maid's Paradise" is a bright little sketch of the adventures and
misadventures of a woman who builds a cottage on Cape Ann promontory for
five hundred dollars, and settles down to a joyful existen