The title of _Gold Must be Tried by Fire_ (MACMILLAN) might be called axiomatic for the precise type of fiction represented by the story. Because, if gold hadn't to be tried by fire, you might obviously marry the hero and heroine on the first page and save everybody much trouble and expense. Mr. RICHARD AUMERLE MAHER, however, knows his job better than that. True, he marries his heroine early, but to the wrong man, the Labour leader and crook, _Will Lewis_, who vanishes just before the entrance of the strong but unsilent hero, only to reappear (under an alias) in time to get shot in a strike riot. Mr. MAHER'S book comes, as you may already have guessed, from that great country where they have replaced alcohol by sugar, and where (perhaps in consequence) heroines of such super-sentimentality as _Daidie Grattan_ have no terrors for them. Personally I found her and her exploits on burning ships, besieged mills and the like a trifle sticky. For the rest you have some interesting details of the workings of the paper industry; a style that to the unfamiliar eye is at times startling (as when, on page 282, the hero's head "snapped erect"); and lots and lots of love. As for the ending, to relieve any apprehensions on your part, let me quote it. "Taking her swiftly in his arms, he questioned: 'Has the gold come free from the fire at last, my darling?' 'Gold or dross,' she whispered as she yielded, 'it is your own.'" _Ah!_ * * * * * _Love's Triumph_ (METHUEN) is concerned to a great extent with the development of a raw Kentucky lad into an attractive and resourceful man; but its chief interest lies rather with his trainer. When _Victor McCalloway_ arrived in Kentucky and took _Boone Wellver_ under his wing it became obvious enough that he was bent on reconstructing his own life as well as moulding _Boone's_. _McCalloway_, when the seal of his past is broken, turns out to be _Sir Hector Dinwiddie, D.S.O., K.C.B._, a tradesman's son who was generally believed to have killed himself in Paris. I must assume that Mr. CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK intended us to recognise in _Sir Hector_ a certain General whose name acquired a painful notoriety not so long ago. The reader may form what opinion he likes of the good taste of all this, but there can be no question that the author has drawn a fine character. At the outset his style is so jumpy that the story is difficult to follow, but presently its course grows clearer and I fancy that you will follow it keenly, as I did, to the end. * * * * * [Illustration: WORRIES OF THE DARK AGES. _Peaceful Knight_ (_who has called to ask his way at a strange castle_). "OH, CONFOUND IT! I WISH I'D READ THE NOTICE BEFORE I BLEW THE HORN. I DON'T FEEL A BIT LIKE FIGHTING GIANTS TO-DAY, AND BESIDES I PROMISED TO BE HOME EARLY FOR DINNER."] * * * * * STRENUOUS LIFE IN THE WEST.