low this
"_puer apparatus_" of G. NORWAY, who, in _Hussein's Hostage_, gives us
the exciting adventures of a Persian boy.

_'Twixt School and College_, by GORDON STABLES, has nothing to do
with horsey experiences, as suggested by the author's name, but is the
uneventful home-life of a poor Scotch laddie, who triumphs by dint of
pluck.

_Nutbrown Roger and I_, by J.H. YOXALL, a romance of the highway,
quite in the correct style of disguises and blunderbusses always so
necessary for a tale of this kind.

_Disenchantment_ is the--not altogether--enticing title of "an
everyday story," by F. MABEL ROBINSON, author of _The Plan of
Campaign_. It is rather a long tale to tell, for it takes 432 pages
in the unravelling. It ends with a beautiful avowal that "the heart
is no more unchanging than the mind, and that love's not immortal,
but an illusion." As the utterer of this truism is a young married
woman, it would seem that the foundation is laid for a sequel to
_Disenchantment_ that might be appropriately called _Divorce_.

_The Secret of the Old House_, by EVELYN EVERETT GREEN, who evidently
can't keep a secret to himself, will be so no longer when the children
have satisfied their curiosity by reading the book.

My faithful "Co." declares that he has been recently hard at work
novel-reading. He has been revelling in an atmosphere of romance.
He has been moved almost to tears by _Lady Hazleton's Confession_,
by Mrs. KENT SPENDER, which, he says, includes, amongst many moving
passages, some glimpses of Parliamentary life. _Friend Olivia_, in
one bulky volume, takes the reader back to the days of CROMWELL, when
people said "hath," instead of "has," and "pray resolve me truly,"
instead of "don't sell me;" and "Mr. JOHN MILTON" played upon the
organ. It has a fine old crusty Puritan flavour about it, which,
however, does not prevent the hero and heroine, in the last page,
reading a letter together, "with smiles, and little laughs, and sweet
asides, and sweeter kisses." Altogether, a book to read when a library
does _not_ contain WALTER SCOTT, ALEXANDRE DUMAS _pere_, G.P.R. JAMES,
or HARRISON AINSWORTH. _Two Masters_ deals with passages in the life
of a young lady who is described as "a Boarding-school Miss" in Volume
I., and "a young she-fiend" in Volume III. However, it is only right
to say, that the last compliment is paid to her by a gentlemanly
murderer, who takes poison and a cigarette, with a view to escaping a
justly