so moved as to smooth one out. And then we do the rest ourselves. We have a piece of the puzzle, a bone in a skeleton: a few pieces are quite enough; the rest is inference and imagination. We mentally work it out, though we seem to see the whole instantaneously. Why then can it not be done intentionally? Up to a point it can be. The play-actor knows that. He can make you up as you will be when you are old with considerable probability: but-it is a very different thing indeed from what we have been pondering. It is mechanical, and the other, however natural, is not mechanical. The divine something comes in after all.

Perhaps we should have considered The Saturday Review.

the sceptic; you do not believe in these wondrous transformations? You have never seen one? And after all what can we say to that? Only that we have: and everyone that is fond of observing faces must have done so too, often. An unobservant person might easily miss such facial phenomena, for they come unexpected and are gone as quickly. But anyone who has seen the young face suddenly take on the old face, a very revelation of the future, will not forget it. It is interesting, but it is rather awesome, this sudden passage of time. Fortunately one cannot catch such a transformation on his own face. The chances of looking in the glass at the psychological moment are too small for that.

Few Americans know their Japan as intimately and interpret it as effectively as Miss Alice Mabel Bacon. Her latest volume, "In the Land of the Gods," is a collection of short stories, some reflecting the folk-lore of the people, others breathing that ardent patriotism at which the world is marvelling all told in a style beautifully clear and simple. If one more than the rest appeals to alien sympathy, it is "The Favor of Hachiman," a portrait of loyalty and mother-love not easily surpassed in any literature. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

A charming book for children is "Lady Dear," by Millicent E. Mann, author of that other delightful story, "Margot, the Court Shoemaker's Child." Lady Dear is the little daughter of a Spanish nobleman who has sailed with Cristofor Colombo, and her adventures as chatelaine of the impoverished castle

include imprisonment by a scheming kinsman who comes to take possession, escape through a secret passage, and flight under the care of a friendly fool to the court of Queen Isabella. The illustrations, by Troy and Margaret Kinney, are uncommonly attractive. A. C. McClurg & Co.

Miss Repplier's graceful style and facile wit were never more delightful than in her latest volume, "In Our Convent Days." The daily routine, the system of rewards and penalties, the "congé sans cloche," the decorous theatrical performance, the visit from the benignant Archbishop, the court of love held by the little girls of the Second Cours out of devotion to the big girls of the First Cours, the geographical competition and the bouquet of "acts" for Reverend Mother's feasteach is vivaciously described, with a pungent aside, now and then, in Miss

From time to time, apparently at pure hazard, without law, without warning, suddenly you see in the face of the child the man. In a moment, again, the vigorous man of forty becomes the old man of eighty. The fresh face of the graceful child will take on for a moment the heavy features of the hard and sensual-looking woman: the young girl is transformed into the comfortable motherly matron. More uncanny still, the very infant sometimes for a second, in a flash, assumes the face of old age. Backwards, too, in the delightful elderly lady appears the girl, real, radiant: but she comes not suddenly; phantom-like she seems to rise slowly, faintly, out of the elderly face you see in the flesh, and then in a moment of time and for a moment she stands before you complete. The happy old man, full of merry memories, expands into the boy of twelve. All this, no doubt, sounds only like scenes from a pantomime or the commonplaces of the fairy books. It does: that is just the effect these appearances leave on those who have eyes to see them, the awesome feelings of children at the transformations of fairy worlds. It is hard to think them merely neutral. Meditating on these strange sensations, one wonders whether they are not the origin of those familiar features of all folklore. Everywhere the wizard strikes children into old men and the good genius by a touch gives back youth to age. When suddenly, wholly unprepared, you see complete the full-grown man in the boy, or the smooth girl countenance shrink into the wrinkled elderly face, it is difficult not to conjure up some wholly external agency, some person, who works the change from without. It is generally so sudden, so unprepared, so manifestly put on externally.

We look about for a cause, for some one who did it. And we do not wonder that primitive men invented fays and wizards to fill the place of beings they felt must be there, but could not see. It is all natural enough, of course, in reality; we know all about everything now; we do not wonder now; we have put away such childishness; except just at the moment of the apparition, when our hair, if many of us told the truth, stands on end just as did the less knowing people's of earlier days. We do not believe in goblins; we have explained them away; but their ghosts revenge themselves by grinning at us from limbo: and we don't like their wraiths much more than our ancestors liked themselves. But the ghosts of goblins have no chance in the clear light; there is the difference. Once the eeriness is off us we become quite happy, quite brave, and we insult the imps with a hardihood our forefathers could never command. So if for the moment the touch of a fairy wand seems necessary, we soon see clear and understand that these strange metamorphoses are but a freak of perfectly natural movements of the face. If we could trace exactly the course of physical growth and decay on the features and make a map of the inevitable writing of the wrinkles, we could draw from the face of the child the face of the man, and the old man, with something very near precision; though the uncertainty of expression would prevent a picture to the very life. And in fact many of the lines of youth and age are scientifically traceable, while we all recognize them by instinct. And no doubt what happens is simply that from time to time the play of the face or some feature of the face cuts deep one or more of the dominant agewrinkles, or the aged countenance is

so moved as to smooth one out. And then we do the rest ourselves. We have a piece of the puzzle, a bone in a skeleton: a few pieces are quite enough; the rest is inference and imagination. We mentally work it out, though we seem to see the whole instantaneously. Why then can it not be done intentionally? Up to a point it can be. The play-actor knows that. He can make you up as you will be when you are old with considerable probability: but-it is a very different thing indeed from what we have been pondering. It is mechanical, and the other, however natural, is not mechanical. The divine something comes in after all.

Perhaps we should have considered The Saturday Review.

the sceptic; you do not believe in these wondrous transformations? You have never seen one? And after all what can we say to that? Only that we have: and everyone that is fond of observing faces must have done so too, often. An unobservant person might easily miss such facial phenomena, for they come unexpected and are gone as quickly. But anyone who has seen the young face suddenly take on the old face, a very revelation of the future, will not forget it. It is interesting, but it is rather awesome, this sudden passage of time. Fortunately one cannot catch such a transformation on his own face. The chances of looking in the glass at the psychological moment are too small for that.

Few Americans know their Japan as intimately and interpret it as effectively as Miss Alice Mabel Bacon. Her latest volume, "In the Land of the Gods," is a collection of short stories, some reflecting the folk-lore of the people, others breathing that ardent patriotism at which the world is marvelling all told in a style beautifully clear and simple. If one more than the rest appeals to alien sympathy, it is "The Favor of Hachiman," a portrait of loyalty and mother-love not easily surpassed in any literature. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

A charming book for children is "Lady Dear," by Millicent E. Mann, author of that other delightful story, "Margot, the Court Shoemaker's Child." Lady Dear is the little daughter of a Spanish nobleman who has sailed with Cristofor Colombo, and her adventures as chatelaine of the impoverished castle

include imprisonment by a scheming kinsman who comes to take possession, escape through a secret passage, and flight under the care of a friendly fool to the court of Queen Isabella. The illustrations, by Troy and Margaret Kinney, are uncommonly attractive. A. C. McClurg & Co.

Miss Repplier's graceful style and facile wit were never more delightful than in her latest volume, "In Our Convent Days." The daily routine, the system of rewards and penalties, the "congé sans cloche," the decorous theatrical performance, the visit from the benignant Archbishop, the court of love held by the little girls of the Second Cours out of devotion to the big girls of the First Cours, the geographical competition and the bouquet of "acts" for Reverend Mother's feasteach is vivaciously described, with a pungent aside, now and then, in Miss

Repplier's characteristic vein of light satire. But her warmest admirers will be surprised at the individuality which she imparts to the children themselves. A varied group, madcap or prig, they are genuine, actual, every one of them, and as a study of child life the book has a distinct claim to popularity. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

In "The Man from Red Keg", a story of the lumber regions of central Michigan, some of the characters re-appear from Eugene Thwing's earlier story, "The Red-Keggers," and the description of a log-loading contest between two rival teams recalls the famous wood-sawing match. The author's familiarity with the scenes of which he writes is evidently close, and there is interesting material in his book. Its hero, too-a young man turned from vicious habits by the influence of a backwoods preacher, and inspired by him with the purpose of rescuing his bitterest enemy from the same courses -deserves commendation. The villain is the blackguard editor of a scurrilous sheet, and the plot ends-with an abruptness which suggests a second sequel with his rescue by the law-abiding elements of the community from an attempt to tar and feather him. The literary quality of the book is not on a level with its moral intent, but it is readable, and to some boys and young men may prove a useful antidote to the yellow-covered novel. Dodd, Mead & Co.

Miss Betham-Edward's position as an officer of Public Instruction has given her unusual opportunities for the study of French habits and modes of thought, and her essays in "Cornhill" and other leading English magazines have been widely read and warmly appreciated. The handsome volume, "Home Life in France," of which A. C. McClurg & Co. are the American

publishers, contains much new material. Social usages, holiday customs, household expenses, domestic servants, the training of children, business openings for women, the country doctor, the curé and the Protestant pastor, the schoolmaster, the tax-collector and the juge de paix, the conscription, restaurant-keeping, experiences of travel, reformatories for boys, drawing-room fiction, the civil code in its relation to family life-all are treated with a lavish yet discriminating use of detail, a sympathy and a shrewd common sense which instruct as well as entertain the reader. There are twenty fine, full-page illustrations, most of them photographs from the works of contemporary artists.

To American readers, at least, "The House of Mirth" bids fair to be the novel of the season. No serial of recent years, with the possible exception of one or two of Mrs. Humphry Ward's, has been followed with so keen an interest by so large a circle of discriminating readers, and in book form the impression of concentrated force is even greater. Portraying the struggle of a woman, young and beautiful but hampered by narrow means, to keep afloat on the current of fashionable life, it introduces a large and various circle of minor characters, all drawn with that psychological subtlety and artistic finish which make Mrs. Wharton's work so notable. But in her central figure she touches a level of creative achievement which she has never reached before and on which she meets few rivals. Lily Bart, along every step of her wavering path between the sordid and the heroic, is real, living, lovable, and the strength of the appeal which her tragedy makes measures the power of the book as a protest against the social conditions which compel it. Charles Scribner's Sons.