He found that Lionel had forgotten all about having been startled into silence by the tapping at the outer door. His heated brain was busy with other bewildering possibilities now.

"Maurice! Maurice!" he said, eagerly. "It is near the time! Quick, quick!-get me the boxbehind the music-on the piano-"

"Look here, Linn," said his friend, with some affectation of asperity, "you must really calm yourself, and be silent, or I shall have to go and sit in the other room. You are straining your

them separate: it isn't twelve yet, is it? No, no, there will be time; now put them on the table by the window, there-yes, that is it-now pour some wine into them-never mind what, Maurice, only be quick!"

Well, he could not refuse this appeal; he thought that most likely the yielding to these incoherent wishes would prove the best means of pacifying the fevered mind; so he went into the next room and brought back some wine, and half filled the two tiny goblets.

"Now wait, Maurice," Lionel said, slowly, and in a still lower voice, though his eyes were afire. Wait and watch-closely, closely; don't breathe or speak. It is near twelve. Watch. Do not take your eyes off them; and at twelve o'clock,

must seize it, seize it-and seize Nina's hand, and hold her fast! Oh, I can tell you she will not leave us any more-not when I have spoken to her and told her how cruel it was of her to go away. I do not know where she is now; but at twelve, all of a sudden, there will be a kind of trembling of the air-that is Nina-for she has been here before. How long to twelve now, Maurice?" he asked, eagerly.

"Oh, it is a long time till twelve yet," his

friend said. "I think, if I were you, I would try to sleep for an hour or two; and I'll go into the other room so as not to disturb you."

"No, no, Maurice," Lionel said, with panting vehemence. "You must not stir! It is quite near, I tell you-it is close on twelve. Watch the cups, Maurice, and be ready to spring up and seize her hand and hold her fast. Quite near twelve... surely I hear something . . . is it something outside the window . . . like stringed instruments . . . and waves, dark waves. . . no, no! Maurice, Maurice! it is in the next roomit is some one sobbing-it is Nina-Nina!"

He uttered a loud shriek, and struggled wildly to raise himself; but Maurice, with gentle pressure and persuasive words, got him to lie still.

"It is past twelve, now, Linn; and you see there has been nothing. We must wait; and some day we will find out all about Nina for you. Of course, you would like to know about your old companion. Oh, we'll find her, rest assured!"

But Maurice, finding him now comparatively quiet, stealthily put back the various trinkets into the box and carried it into the other room. And then, hearing no further sound, he remained there remained until the nurse came down to take his place.

He told her what had occurred; but she was familiar with these things, and doubtless knew much better than himself how to deal with such emergencies. At the street door he paused to light his pipe—his first smoke that day, and surely well earned. Then he went away through the dark thoroughfares down to Westminster, not without much pity and sadness in his mind, also perhaps with some curious speculations as to the lot of poor luckless mortals, their errors and redeeming virtues, and the vagrant and cruel buffetings of fate. (Harper. 50 c.)-From Black's

"Prince Fortunatus."

No one can complain that in his last story Mr. Howells has taken his type from the commonplace. It is a study of life in New York, and the author has brought together such a gallery of odd and strongly differentiated characters as could perhaps be found in no other city on the continent, while the conditions and phases of social life represented are not less distinctive and peculiar. The Marches, it is true, are from Boston, but they serve the purpose of external points of observation, whence to note and sufficienttly to emphasize those features of our city life which of necessity strike strangers and outsiders most forcibly and with the greatest freshness of suggestion. A new magazine is founded with the money of old Dryfoos, a “natural gas millionaire," whose primary object is to give his son Conrad-a youth of saint-like character and dominant altruism-opportunity to become a business man. The prime mover of the venture is Fulkerson, a true Western Yankee, if the phrase be allowable, whose engaging impudence, fluent slang, indomitable assurance, and substantial loyalty and goodness of heart are sure to make him as great a favorite with the reader as he is with all who know him in the story. The Marches, too, are capital, and nowhere has Mr. Howells better presented that peculiar American humor which finds motives for half-sarcastic jest and quip in even the most serious things, less out of lightness of heart than from an almost desperate consciousness of hopeless incongruities and perplexities inherent in the general scheme.

. . The picture is in itself a condemnation of and protest against that rank growth of naked

materialism which is the most depressing feature of our time. The character and the faults of society are shown plainly but temperately-the spirit of levity, the love of spectacle, the repugnance to serious thinking, the absence of jealousy of popular rights, constantly encroached upon, ignored and subordinated to selfish corporate or individual interests. The aspects of the city are also most graphically and admirably described in many a wandering of the Marches, and the book exhibits an amount of local study undertaken by the author which speaks well for his conscientiousness, and adds much to the charm and permanent interest of the story. There is, as we have intimated, an unwonted variety and an unwonted force in “A Hazard of New Fortunes." If it can hardly be said to have a dominant note, it is none the less a faithful and carefully elaborated study of New York life, and it presents some of the most salient characteristics of that life in a very impressive and artistic manner. Most readers will, we think, agree with us that the change in method here shown is a change for the better. Never, certainly, has Mr. Howells written more brilliantly, more clearly, more firmly, or more attractively, than in this instance. The reversion to these strong individualizations seems to have put new vigor into his hands, and he deals with the deeper tragedies, the graver emotions of life, with a power which may perhaps be regarded as a practical demonstration of the ultimate supremacy destined to be attained by Nature over Art; by the true over the false Realism. A library edition in two volumes is now in press. (Harper. pap., 75 c.)-N. Y. Tribune.

a Green Mountain cornfield, or wandering along an old road; he tells a charming story of a friendship he struck up with a blue-headed vireo; his delicate fancies lend lustre to a November chronicle; he has a good word for that much-abused season, New England winter; he takes us as will ing followers on a mountain-side ramble; he sounds the praises of the pitch-pine; he dwells upon the esoteric nature of peripateticism; he expounds the psychology of the butterfly; and he strives to solve that perplexing riddle, How do partridges drum? On all of these topics Mr. Bradford discourses with enthusiasm, with closeness of observation, with many a flash of wit, and with no small store of wisdom. A Rambler's Lease" should go on the shelf devoted to the works of Thoreau, Burroughs, and Edith Thomas; and by association with these choice spirits it will not lose its admirable significance. (Houghton, M. $1.25.) - Boston Beacon.

"

SAID IN FUN.

THIS book is issued as a memorial volume to the late genial humorist whose sprightly and incisive mots in Life, Puck, the New York Times, the Sun, and Harper's periodicals always sped like arrows to their mark. A memorial volume, but with no touch of the lugubriousness which the epithet suggests, for it is a collection of some of Mr. Welch's happiest conceits, and these have been made the nuclei for illustrative sketches contributed as a labor of love by some of the best known and most successful comic artists of the day, so that the volume, both by picture and word, is fitted to add to the jollity of the holiday season; and it will be a further satisfaction to the purchaser of this bookful of "most excellent fooling" to know that the royalties on the sales will go to the fund for the benefit of Mr. Welch's widow and children. (Scribner. $1.25.)—The Home Journal.

LITTLE BOY.-I'm goin' to drown him.

GENTLEMAN.-I'll give you a dollar for him.

Chip.