Baronesses, "has quite come forward this Christmas, daintily attired." Wonderful money-prizes are to be won by the lucky person who guesses the author of "Bid Me not Go," which is the Christmas story of the enterprising Gentlewoman.

"As for Christmas Cards being Christmassy," quoth a young Baron brusquely, "why it's all Walker!" The Baron was about to rebuke the scion of his noble house, but discovered, on application, that the youth had been alluding to the Christmas Card publisher of that name, whose designs are not peculiarly Christmassy, but what the Baroness terms "so dainty!"

S. Hildesheimer & Co.'s clever and amusing Christmas Cards will be much appreciated by young people.

Three books full of stories, to suit all ages. Hutchinson's House. Fifty-two Stories for Children, Fifty-two Stories for Girlhood and Youth, and Fifty-two Stories for Boyhood and Youth. Just a story a week, will last the year. Collected by Alfred H. Miles. You won't find a better if you go for Miles.

Valdmer, the Viking, by Hume Nisbet, was a wonderful Dane, who, after invading England in the Tenth Century, took a trip from Thanet (having invented Ramsgate and Margate) all round America, and thought nothing of it. Those who read this will probably think something of it.

The Hoyden, written by Mrs. Hungerford, and published by Heinemann, is the story of a rather frivolous nineteenth-century tomboy; "but," quoth the Baroness, "though it does not come within measurable distance of The O'Connors of Ballinahinch, it is pleasant light reading."

Mr. Gladstone's Life; Told by Himself, is an alluring title, which, in spite of the volume being issued by so respectable a house as Kegan Paul's, savours of a flam. But it is genuine enough. Every word in the little volume has been spoken or written by Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Leech, whilst modestly disclaiming any imposition of responsibility upon the Premier, has ingeniously linked passages from speeches or letters published under his name during the past sixty years. The result is a really fascinating work. Mr. Gladstone has always been prone to drop into autobiography. Nothing, my Baronite tells me, was more delightful than the speeches he used to deliver in the House of Commons on Friday and Tuesday nights. Some chance reference to Canning, Peel, or Palmerston brought up a flood of recollections, and Mr. G. used to chat of old times with the entranced House.

In a pleasant little book called Essays on Idleness, the authoress, Agnes Repplier, speaking of her cat, observes, "It were ignoble to wish myself in her place, and yet how charming to be able to settle down to a nap, sans peur et sans reproche, at ten o'clock in the morning." Surely instead of "sans peur" she should have written "sans purr," as far more applicable to a cat asleep.

"Here is a work that I prize indeed!" quoth the Baron, surveying with unmixed pleasure two handsome volumes, readable from every point of view of type, handiness, and matter that is of substance and spirit, being a re-issue of the immortal Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. "Mind you," he continues, tenderly regarding them, "though this I admit is an édition de luxe, yet do I far and away prefer the simple volume without illustrations. Why illustrations? Why try to impose on us, as by artistic authority, the faces, forms, and the situations that we would infinitely prefer to idealise? Without the faculty of imagination no one can enjoy this work, pictures or no pictures: possessed of the faculty, what need of the illustrations, save so far as they may carry out our own notions of the author's meaning? If they do not, then we quarrel with them. But many thanks for these two volumes, brought out by Messrs. Gay and Bird (delightful association of adjective and substantive, as we have had afortime occasion to remark); for among all hooks, whether at this Christmas Season, when they come in quite with a Charles-Lamblike and Washington-Irvingesque flavour, or at any other time, these be most welcome to the constant lover of old Literary Friends.

Yuletideian Baron de Book-worms."