"A drop of ditch-water under a microscope" Hogan calls the society of his native city--"everybody pushing upward on the social ladder kicking down those behind." This zoological spectacle is not confined to Dublin, but there appears to be a combination of strictness and indefiniteness of precedence belonging peculiarly to that place. At the top of the ladder, though not so firmly fixed there as before the Disestablishment, is the Protestant set, regarding the Castle as its stronghold and looking down on the Roman Catholic set, who reciprocate the contempt. These grand divisions are separated by a strict line of demarcation, even the performance of the marriage ceremony between Protestants and Catholics being forbidden in Dublin. They contain an endless ramification of lesser groups, whose relations we may attempt to illustrate by quoting from the book before us an account of the mutual position of Mrs. O'Neil and Mrs. Carew, the former the wife of a tradesman shortly to become lord mayor, the latter a "'vert" from Protestantism and the spouse of a Crown solicitor in debt to his future mayorship. "The lady mayoress elect, conscious of her prospective dignity in addition to the heavy bill due by the Carews, was the least possible shade--not patronizing, for that would have been impossible--but perhaps independent in manner. She did not turn her head toward her companion as she addressed her; she put more questions to her and in a broader accent than she usually did in conversation; and she barely gave her interlocutor time to finish the rather curt contributions she vouchsafed toward the conversation. On her side, Mrs. Carew, mindful of her position and of her superior accent, which implied even more, wanting to be condescending and patronizing, and half afraid to be openly impertinent, was calm and self-possessed. She grew more freezingly courteous as the other lady grew less formal." We have said that Miss Laffan began with realism pure and simple. _Hogan, M.P._, remains, so far, to our mind, her strongest book, but there are finer and sweeter qualities in her other writings. We should be inclined to rank _The Honorable Miss Ferrard_ as an artistic rather than a realistic book, though it is based on the same soundness of observation as its predecessor. It is an episode, suggestive, rather analytic in treatment, with the freshness of a first impression--_le charme de l'inacheve_. The heroine is a singularly original, fresh and attractive conception. The book deals almost wholly with the outside aspects of things, with picturesque rather than moral traits, though a breath of feeling true and sweet is wafted across it and heightens its fine vague beauty.