_A._ Chiefly horrors. Nightmare after a pork-chop supper I fancy. _Nelly Jocelyn_ (_Widow_), is a welcome contrast. One of the best things Miss JEAN MIDDLEMASS has done. The character of _Paul Cazalet_ capitally drawn and foreign local colouring admirable. _Q._ What do you think of _His Own Enemy_? _A._ Fancy the title somehow must refer to the Author. Clerical sketches full of unconscious humour. Two volumes but _very_ big ones. Quite a relief to get to _A False Start_,--by HAWLEY SMART, which is most entertaining. But in this case the name of the Author is a safe guarantee for something worth reading. _Q._ What do you think of _A Modern Circe_? _A._ I fancy it is not quite so good as _Molly Brown_, by the same Author. _Q._ What do you know of _Molly Brown_? _A._ Nothing--I have not read it. _Q._ What have you to say about _Scamp_? _A._ That it is by the Author of _The Silent Shadow_, which I fancy must be the sequel of another novel called _The Garrulous Ghost_. In the first chapter the heroine _Scamp_, (a young lady) is discovered up a tree from which coign of vantage she throws a yellow-paper-covered novel at the gardener's head. _Q._ The first chapter then must be vastly entertaining? _A._ Vastly. I am absolutely dying to read the chapters that follow it, and will--some day. _Q._ What is _Brother or Lover_ about? _A._ I don't know--do you? _Q._ This is trifling! Pray describe _Out of Tune_. _A._ Ought to have been called _Out of Paganini_--founded upon that distinguished fiddler's life, although (as the Author says) "it is necessarily speculative as to its details." _Q._ Have you read _In the King's Service_? _A._ Some of it. Fancy it deals with the Peninsular War. _Q._ How about _Jill and Jack_? _A._ Book I imagine written before the title. Rather hard work to get up the hill which ends with the last chapter. _Q._ What is _Hidden in my Heart_? _A._ Seemingly the words which finish the third volume, "It is two years now since _Hubert_ died, and to-morrow is my second wedding-day." _Q._ Is this the first novel that the Authoress has written? _A._ Oh dear no. She has also published _Out of Eden_, _Quite True_, and a book which apparently refers to the late-in-life "finishing" of an uneducated ecclesiastic called _The Vicar's Governess_. _Q._ Don't you think that you are rather hard upon the novelists? _A._ I hope not. I am sure I owe them a deep, deep debt of gratitude. _Q._ How so? _A._ Without them I should be a victim to insomnia. * * * * * [Illustration: A REMINISCENCE OF THE VERY DRY WEATHER. _Secretary to Water-Works._ "TUT-T-T-T. 'GETTING VERY SERIOUS, Y'KNOW! IF THIS DROUGHT CONTINUES, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE----" _Friend._ "LOOK HERE,--CAN'T YOU TURN ON SOME WHISKEY IN THE SERVICE? MY DEAR FELLOW, IT WOULD INFALLIBLY PREVENT WASTE!"] * * * * * THE WHISTLING RELIEF. (_A Song for the Sleepy._)