e. She knew all about the
slavery of the marriage-tie, the liberty of the female subject, and
high-sounding things of that sort, and kept books of advanced thinking
secretly under her mattress--where her little brother found them and
thought them dull, and her mother found them and thought them rather
funny. _Victoria's_ theory was that all marriages ought to be preceded
by a trial trip, but it was her sister _Gail_ who had the pluck to put
this theory into practice. She insisted on her young man, _Peter_,
eloping with her on the night before their wedding. _Peter_, a simple
gentleman with a mouth permanently open, was reluctantly persuaded.
Whereupon _Christopher_, the best man, engaged to _Victoria_, insisted
upon _Victoria_ also living up to her theory and eloping without
clerical assistance--which she did almost as unwillingly as _Peter_. The
two couples meet at midnight in an old moorland cottage rented by an
artist called _Max_ (no, not the one you think), whereupon two important
things happen:--

(1) _Gail_ decides in about twenty minutes that she loves
_Max_, not _Peter_. (2) _Victoria_ decides that she hates trial
trips. So they all five go back together, and, after a lot of
"Tut-tut-what-the-blank-upon-my-souls" from the military stage-father,
they sort themselves out again and get married properly--_Peter_ being
left over with a cold in the head.

The author, Miss RACHEL CROTHERS, has not strained herself severely in
writing _Young Wisdom_, and the result is a pleasantly innocent little
play, which, thanks to the Misses MARGERY MAUDE and MADGE TITHERADGE as
the two sisters, and Mr. JOHN DEVERELL as _Peter_, gave us all a good
deal of pleasure. Miss MAUDE had a part with a little comedy in it for
once, and she played it delightfully.

M.

* * * * *

MEDITATIONS ON MUSHROOMS.

We were playing the ancient and honourable game of acrostics and we had
to think of and describe a word bounded on the West by the initial E,
and on the East by the final H.

"That which you can never have of mushrooms," was one of the
descriptions. It was, of course, guessed at once--"Enough;" and could
there be a truer compliment to this strange exotic delicacy, which costs
nothing but a walk in an early autumnal morning and is more choice than
the rarest flavours ever designed by the most inspired of _chefs_? For
certainly there has never been enough of them. I, at any rate, have
never had eno