OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. [Illustration: Accompanying Trilby.] Our GEORGE DU MAURIER is in analogous case to that of a dramatic character of whom he may possibly have heard. _M. Jourdain_ one day happed upon the discovery that he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it. Mr. DU MAURIER has lived through half a century master of an exquisite style, and only now makes the discovery known to the world. Plain indications of the fact were given in _Peter Ibbetson_. But in respect of style and in other matters, _Trilby_, just published by OSGOOD, MCILVAINE & CO., is a prodigious improvement. That a man who has made his mark in pencil should, on taking up his pen, disclose possession of the rare gift of style, strikes the literary person with more marvel even than is evoked by discovery of a new novelist who can construct a plot and delineate character. Mr. DU MAURIER has rich endowment of all these gifts, which shine on every page of _Trilby_. He has, moreover, given us a new thing quite apart from the run of English novels. HENRI MURGER was before him with a deathless book in which life in the Quartier Latin is powerfully and tenderly portrayed. Mr. DU MAURIER'S chapters on student life in Paris need not fear comparison with _La Vie de Bohème_, which is praise of the kind Sir HUBERT STANLEY hoarded. Beyond that, growing out of it, is the boldly conceived, firmly-drawn, and charmingly coloured character of _Trilby_, with her curious _entourage_, her varied life, and her tragic end. _Little Billee_, in whom some will find revived lost memories of a dear friend, is a charming personality, whilst _Taffy_ and the _Laird_ are live men. With such wealth of material and such felicity of touch, Mr. DU MAURIER might well have foregone the temptation of allowing _Little Billee_ to hold forth on theological subjects to his dog, at a length inevitable in the pulpit, but a little out of place as an interlude in a novel. This passage supplies a jarring note in an otherwise almost perfect symphony.