Writes a Baronitess, "How quaint and simple appear the affectations of Miss JANE AUSTEN'S heroines in _Pride and Prejudice_, especially now that one's mind is confused with the vagaries of the newspaper-created but impossible 'New Woman.'" Rather different days then, when girls addressed their mothers as "Ma'am," and were afraid of getting their feet wet, which was unromantic, and bread-and-butter romance was the fashion of those times. No matter, these romantic young women knew how to dress, according to the exquisite illustrations of HUGH THOMSON. What could be expected but sentiment, when the young men also appeared so picturesquely attired. This new edition of an old work is charmingly got up and published by GEORGE ALLAN. Turning from these very early nineteenth century attractions, I find _A Battle and a Boy_ staring at me from a brilliant red binding. The colour suggests a gory fight, but there is nothing martial about it, only a Tyrolean peasant-boy in a pugilistic attitude with another boy. He is having it out before starting on his battle of life, which, taking place in the gay Tyrol, where things happen out-of-the-way, BLANCHE WILLIS HOWARD has made it more interesting than an every-day fight. [Illustration: Most Interesting.] Most young women nowadays like to be here, there, and everywhere, and so you will find them in the _Fifty-two Stories of Girl-life_, by some of our best women writers, and edited by ALFRED H. MILES. Messrs. HUTCHINSON who, publish this work, might head their advertisement with "Go for Miles--and you won't find anything better than this." Other jokes on "miles" they may discover or invent for themselves. These are mostly for our big girls, but the little ones will find a gorgeously gay _Rosebud Annual_ for 1895, quite a prize-flower, exhibited by JAMES CLARK & CO.; whilst _Rosy Mite; or, the Witch's Spell_, by VERA PETROWNA JELIBROVSKY,--this is a nice easy name to ask for!--is a most thrilling nursery tale of how a little girl, who ought to be an arithmetician after being reduced to the size of her little finger, is able to subtract much adventurous interest from among the insects and the insect-world, and is full of undivided wonders. The illustrations, by T. PYM, show how charmingly unconventional life can be in such circumstances. [Illustration: Aunï and Nephew BY OUR OWN BIRD FANCIER.]