a place called Sunshine, in
Western Canada, nothing would content her but to emigrate with the whole
tribe--reinforced by a delightful _Aunt Mary_ and an animal known as the
Meritorious Cat--to the Land of Promise. The book is the history of how
they got on there. Naturally, from the circumstances of their start and
the giddy altitude of _Alberta's_ hopes, you will be prepared for its
being, to some extent at least, a story of disillusion. Miss MADGE S.
SMITH, who wrote it, says that it is all true; and indeed there is much
in the tale that stamps it as the outcome of personal experience. This
being so, I could wish that her attitude in the matter had been a little
less uncompromisingly English. In many ways the language and general
outlook of the daughter of an Oxford don will no doubt differ
considerably from that of a Canadian-born inhabitant of a prairie
township; but that is no good reason for assuming an air of patronage.
However, this defect, though it exists, is not so pronounced as to spoil
one's enjoyment of an entertaining record, written, as the publishers
say, "in high spirits throughout," and having, I fancy, just this much
fiction mingled with its obvious fact, that it ends with a general
pairing off and the prospect of three weddings--which seems, as _Lady
Bracknell_ observed in a similar connection, "a number considerably
above the average that statistics have laid down for our guidance." But
at least it is the _amende honorable_ to the Land of Promise.

* * * * *

From the cover of _A Tail of Gold_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) I gather with
respectful interest that its author, Mr. DAVID HENNESSEY, recently won
four hundred pounds with another story in open competition. I did not
read the story in question, but in view of its satisfactory financial
result I may be permitted to express a hope that it was considerably
better work than the present volume. Let me be entirely fair. _A Tail of
Gold_ has some pictures of Australian mining life that are not without
interest; but I am bound to add that a careful and sympathetic perusal
has failed to disclose any other reason for its existence. The plot, so
far as there is one, concerns the chequered career of a certain _Major
Smart_, who seems to have been by no means all that a major should be.
Amongst other unpleasing peculiarities, he was apparently possessed of a
fetish that brought misfortune or death to all who were associated with