Of the many good books which the Messrs. Lothrop have prepared for the shelves of Sunday-school libraries, "Yensie Walton" is one of the best. It is a sweet, pure story of girl life, quiet as the flow of a brook, and yet of sufficient interest to hold the attention of the most careless reader. Yensie is an orphan, who has found a home with an uncle, a farmer, some distance from the city. Her aunt, a coarse, vulgar woman, and a tyrant in the household, does her best to humiliate her by making her a domestic drudge, taking away her good clothing and exchanging it for coarse, ill-filling garments, and scolding her from morning till night. This treatment develops a spirit of resistance; the mild and affectionate little girl becomes passionate and disobedient, and the house is the scene of continual quarrels. Fortunately, her uncle insists upon her attending school, and in the teacher, Miss Gray, she finds her first real friend. In making her acquaintance a new life begins for her. She is brought in contact with new and better influences, and profiting by them becomes in time a sunbeam in her uncle's house, and the means of softening the heart and quieting the tongue of the aunt who was once her terror and dread. Mrs. Clark has a very pleasing style, and is especially skilful in the construction of her stories. "Yensie Walton" is a story of great power, by a new author. It aims to show that God uses a stern discipline to form the noblest characters, and that the greatest trials of life often prove the greatest blessings. The story is subordinate to this moral aim, and the earnestness of the author breaks out into occasional preaching. But the story is full of striking incident and scenes of great pathos, with occasional gleams of humor and fun by way of relief to the more tragic parts of the narrative. The characters are strongly drawn, and, in general, are thoroughly human, not gifted with impossible perfections, but having those infirmities of the flesh which make us all akin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RECENT BOOKS. JOHNNY'S VACATIONS AND OTHER STORIES. By Mary E. N. Hathaway. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. $1.00. Few more entertaining stories for small boys have lately made their appearance than _Johnny's Vacations_. The author seems to have had experience with boys and tells in a charmingly natural manner the story of a vacation spent on a farm by one of them, Johnny Stephens by name. In addition there are six shorter stories, in which the girls will be as deeply interested as the boys. Among them are "The Doll's Party," "Biddy and her Chickens," "The Wild Goose," and "Pansy's Visit." ROYAL LOWRIE. A Boy's Book. By Magnus Merriweather. D. Lothrop & Co., Boston. With eleven illustrations by Hopkins. 16mo. Price, $1.25.