os which belongs to childhood, a
pathos never too much elaborated or too distressingly prolonged. She is
abundantly dramatic. Her stories are full of action. Her incidents,
though never forced or unnatural, are almost all picturesque, and they
succeed one another rapidly.

Nevertheless we have not yet noted Mrs. O'Reilly's chief excellence as a
story-writer, nor is it easy to find a single word to express that
admirable quality. We come nearest it, perhaps, when we say that her
tales have absolute _reality_; there is in them no suggestion of being
made up, no visible composition. The illusion of her pictures is so
perfect that it is not illusion. This _note_ of reality, which ought to
be prevalent in any romance, is positively indispensable in a juvenile
one, and it is perfectly delivered by one only of our native writers of
children's books. That one is of course Miss Alcott. Her "Little Women"
are as real as Daisy Grey and Bessie Somers; the "Little Men" very
nearly so. We have other writers who approach Miss Alcott, more or less
closely: Mrs. Walker, Aunt Fanny, Susan Coolidge in the more realistic
parts of the "New Year's Bargain;" and indeed the latter writer comes so
near _truth_, and is also so like the author of the "Doll World" stories
in the quality of her talent, that one hopes her next essay may be
absolutely successful in this regard.

_From the New York Tribune._

The pretty edition of Mrs. Robert O'Reilly's works, just issued by
Messrs. Roberts Brothers, will be welcome to a throng of juvenile
readers as the first gift-book of the autumn. It is hard to say which of
the three charming volumes comprised in this series will be most liked
at the nursery hearth. We fancy "Doll World" appeals most tenderly to
the affections of little matrons with baby-houses and families of wood
and wax to care for; though "Deborah's Drawer," with its graceful
interlinking of story with story, is sure to be the elected favorite of
many. Our own preference is for "Daisy's Companions," and this for a
reason less comprehensible to children than to older people; namely,
that the story closes, leaving the characters in the midst of their
childish lives, and without hint of further fate or development.

There are few books for children which we can recommend so thoroughly
and so heartily as hers. And as one of our wise men has told us that
"there is a want of principle in making amusements for children dear,"
Messrs. Roberts Brot