A reflection that I could not resist after reading _Love the Harper_ (SMITH, ELDER) was that the Boy appears in this volume as a very indifferent performer upon his instrument. For the muddle into which he plunged the amatory affairs of the inhabitants of Downside was terrible. Downside was a quiet delightful village, as lovingly described by Miss ELEANOR G. HAYDEN, but the number of misplaced attachments it contained seemed, as _Lady Bracknell_ once observed, "in excess of that which statisticians have laid down for our guidance." There was _John Harding_, the hero, who began by courting _Phyllis_, and subsequently transferred his suit to _Ruth_. There was _Will_, his brother, an even more inconstant lover, whom _Phyllis_ (still nominally betrothed to _John_) adored at first sight, and who divided his own heart between _Ruth_, _Phyllis_ and the crippled _Miss Mayling_. There was also _Ruth_ herself, who thought she had a Past (she hadn't, at least it was all right really; but just in what sense it would be unfair to explain here) and therefore imagined herself for no man. The story begins with a wedding on the first page; and what with one thing and another I began to fear that this was the last consummation we were likely to get. But, of course, in the end---- But I shall not tell you how the couples finally re-sort themselves, because this is the author's secret, and one that she very craftily preserves till the last moment. It is arithmetically inevitable that there must be an odd woman left over in the end; but as to her identity I was entirely wrong, and so probably will you be. This ending is perhaps the best thing--I don't mean the words in an unkind sense--about a pleasant if not very thrilling story of a country that Miss HAYDEN evidently knows with the knowledge of affection. * * * * *