"Miss Whitby essays a lighter vein than usual in her collection of stories, entitled 'A Matter of Skill.' But she writes with the same excellence and freedom, and all these miniature love-stories will be cordially welcomed. Lovely woman appears in these pages in a variety of moods, humorous and pathetic, and occasionally she seems not a little 'uncertain, coy, and hard to please.' The title story, showing how a stately girl is captured, after a good deal of trouble, by a short and common-place young man, is very amusing; and there are other sketches in which it is interesting to follow the wiles of Mother Eve ere she has come to years of discretion."--_Academy_. JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN. By Mrs. Craik. "The new and cheaper edition of this interesting work will doubtless meet with great success. John Halifax, the hero of this most beautiful story, is no ordinary hero, and this his history is no ordinary book. It is a full-length portrait of a true gentleman, one of nature's own nobility. It is also the history of a home, and a thoroughly English one. The work abounds in incident, and many of the scenes are full of graphic power and true pathos. It is a book that few will read without becoming wiser and better."--_Scotsman_. A LIFE FOR A LIFE. By Mrs. Craik. "We are always glad to welcome this author. She writes from her own convictions, and she has the power not only to conceive clearly what it is that she wishes to say, but to express it in language effective and vigorous. In 'A Life for a Life' she Is fortunate in a good subject, and she has produced a work of strong effect The reader, having read the book through for the story, will be apt (if he be of our persuasion) to return and read again many pages and passages with greater pleasure than on a first perusal. The whole book is replete with a graceful, tender delicacy; and, in addition to its other merits, it is written in good careful English."--_Athenæum_. CHRISTIAN'S MISTAKE. By Mrs. Craik. "A more charming story, to our taste, has rarely been written. Within the compass of a single volume the writer has hit off a circle of varied characters, all true to nature--some true to the highest nature--and she has entangled them in a story which keeps us in suspense till the knot is happily and gracefully resolved; while, at the same time, a pathetic interest is sustained by an art of which it would be difficult to analyse the secret. It is a choice gift to be able thus to render human nature so truly, to penetrate its depths with such a searching sagacity, and to illuminate them with a radiance so eminently the writer's own."--_The Times_. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED. _Each in One Volume, Crown Octavo, 3s. 6d._ A NOBLE LIFE. By Mrs. Craik. "Few men and no women will read 'A Noble Life' without feeling themselves the better for the effort."--_Spectator_.