_He Looked in My Window_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS), by ROBERT HALIFAX, gives the adventures of _Ruth Shadd_, decentest of dwellers in a meanish street, during her determined hunt for a husband. It would have been easy to make all this unlovely in its frankness, but the author very skilfully (and, I think, very sincerely) avoids this. _Ruth_ is a fine girl, with character and candour, those too rare assets, and having pursued, and found wanting, _Bert_, the swanker, who hasn't the courage for matrimony; the polite and fatuously prudent _Archie_, and _Joe_, the vegetarian, who had such exalted faith in malt, she wins a deserved happiness with someone that she had never even thought of pursuing. Mr. HALIFAX gives me an impression of almost cinematographic and gramophonic exactness in his portraiture. _George Shadd_, _Ruth's_ father, who worked in the gasworks and was one of the very best, delighted me particularly, with his pathetic little garden, his battle with the slugs and black-fly, and his fine patience with _Mrs. Shadd_, who put her washing before his fire and her props among his choicest seedlings--a difficult woman indeed. The author writes with humour and sympathy; and that is the way to write of this brave if narrow life. It is the first time I have looked in Mr. HALIFAX'S window. I shall take steps to do so again. 'Tis a nice clean window. * * * * * Not even the most confirmed Gallio can avoid caring for _Arthur Stanton--A Memoir_, by the Rt. Hon. G.W.E. RUSSELL (LONGMANS), when he has once dipped his mind into the book. It is the record of a singularly beautiful and beneficent life, lived to the very utmost in the service of God and man, and ruled by a simple and direct religion which constantly forced practice up to the exalted level of precept. Judged by merely worldly standards of achievement, ARTHUR STANTON'S life could not be considered a success. He began as curate of St. Alban's, Holborn, and as curate of St. Alban's he ended after many years of enthusiastic devotion to humanity. He was foiled and thwarted by the great ones of the Church, inhibited in one place, suspended in another, and frequently doomed to find a Bishop or a Chaplain-General set, like a lion, across his path. But nothing could avail to stop him where he found a soul that could be saved or misery that could be relieved. His congregation, drawn from the slums of Holborn, would have died for him to a man, for they realised with how great an ardour his life was spent in order that he might help them. His faith was not a mystery kept apart for special occasions, but a daily and hourly influence vivifying his words and directing his actions. And no man could have enjoyed himself more than this true saint and interpreter of God to man. His religion was not one of gloom and foreboding, but a cheerful and delightful habit of mind and soul. _Tantum religio potuit suadere bonorum._ Mr. RUSSELL has done his work with great skill and