AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE have certainly been well advised about their sub-title to _The Black Office and other Chapters of Romance_ (MURRAY). For that is precisely what the tales are; and excellently romantic and thrilling chapters too, for the most part dated in the decade following the great Anglo-French peace of a century ago. Probably you couldn't say off-hand what the Black Office was. Let me whisper. It was, amongst other things, a postal censorship that opened and perused all letters intended to cross the Channel. With what natural indignation would you, in July three years ago, have read of such monstrous activities! Truly, as the authors say, there is some interest in the comparison of then and now. Of the other stories, my own favourites would he "The Resurrectionist" and "The Smile on the Portrait." The first of these is a haunting affair of body-snatching, or rather of an early escapade of the notorious BURKE, who was asked to supply a red-haired corpse, and not finding one produced instead a gentleman who had yet to fulfil the condition precedent to body-snatching, i.e. who had to be killed first and snatched afterwards. This is certainly as grim as anything I have met over the Castellated signature. Beside it, "The Smile on the Portrait," the tale of a jealous husband who becomes a maniac, is almost soothing. They had clearly their little worries even a century ago. The CASTLES, as everybody knows, have always had the trick of adventurous fiction; _The Black Office, etc._, proves that their hands have lost nothing of their cunning. * * * * *