finds her first real friend. In making her acquaintance a new life
begins for her. She is brought in contact with new and better
influences, and profiting by them becomes in time a sunbeam in her
uncle's house, and the means of softening the heart and quieting the
tongue of the aunt who was once her terror and dread. Mrs. Clark has a
very pleasing style, and is especially skilful in the construction of
her stories.

"Yensie Walton" is a story of great power, by a new author. It aims to
show that God uses a stern discipline to form the noblest characters,
and that the greatest trials of life often prove the greatest blessings.
The story is subordinate to this moral aim, and the earnestness of the
author breaks out into occasional preaching. But the story is full of
striking incident and scenes of great pathos, with occasional gleams of
humor and fun by way of relief to the more tragic parts of the
narrative. The characters are strongly drawn, and, in general, are
thoroughly human, not gifted with impossible perfections, but having
those infirmities of the flesh which make us all akin.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

RECENT BOOKS.

JOHNNY'S VACATIONS AND OTHER STORIES. By Mary E. N. Hathaway. Boston: D.
Lothrop & Co. $1.00.

Few more entertaining stories for small boys have lately made their
appearance than _Johnny's Vacations_. The author seems to have had
experience with boys and tells in a charmingly natural manner the story
of a vacation spent on a farm by one of them, Johnny Stephens by name.
In addition there are six shorter stories, in which the girls will be as
deeply interested as the boys. Among them are "The Doll's Party," "Biddy
and her Chickens," "The Wild Goose," and "Pansy's Visit."

ROYAL LOWRIE. A Boy's Book. By Magnus Merriweather. D. Lothrop & Co.,
Boston. With eleven illustrations by Hopkins. 16mo. Price, $1.25.

Despite the efforts of publishers, a brilliant book for boys is a _rara
avis_; therefore "Royal Lowrie" is likely to be appreciated by all
lively boys between twelve and forty. While in literary finish the book
ranks with the best novels of the day, the characters are the boys and
girls of our modern High Schools. The plot is of breathless interest,
but of such a character that we will warrant when the general
mystification is dispersed no reader will feel like ever undertaking to
seem what he is not. The humiliation which at last overtakes Roy