I was inclined to flatter myself that nothing in the plot of _The Silver Tea-shop_ (STANLEY PAUL) could possibly take me by surprise, but I found towards the end that Miss E. EVERETT GREEN had contrived to slip in the real villain all unsuspected while I, as she meant me to, was staring hard at the supposed one, so that there I must acknowledge myself defeated. With a stolen invention, an old gentleman found shot in his room, and a son under a vow to avenge his father, the story provides plenty of thrills, and the "Silver Tea-shop" itself has the fascination that business ventures in books often exercise. It seems to be run on such lavish lines for the prices charged that I found myself looking hungrily for its address. I wish the author had not referred to her hero as having "mobile digits" and burdened her ingenuous story with anything so important as a prologue. By making the villain's deserted offspring not one baby girl only, or even twins, but triplets, Miss EVERETT GREEN provides waitresses all of one family for the "Silver Tea-shop," and that, though a happy arrangement, is a little too uncommon to add to the likelihood of an unconvincing tale. * * * * * When a book is succinctly labelled _Love Stories_ (DORAN), at least no one has any right to complain that he wasn't warned beforehand of the character of its contents. As a matter of fact, human nature being what it is, I have little doubt that Mrs. MARY ROBERTS RINEHART has hit upon a distinctly profitable title. Indeed I believe that this has already been proved in the Land of Freedom, from which the work comes to us, where (I am given to understand) the vogue of sentimental fiction is even greater than with ourselves. What the name does nothing to indicate is that the stories are almost all of them laid in or about hospital wards. For some, perhaps most, of the author's admirers this may serve only to increase the charm; for others, who prefer their romance unflavoured with iodoform, not. Undeniable that she has a smiling way with her, and a gift of sympathetic enjoyment that carries off the old, old dialogues, even imparting freshness to the tale of the patient _in extremis_ who persuades his attractive nurse into a death-bed marriage, treatment that the slightest experience of fiction should have warned her to be invariably curative. Perhaps the best of the tales is "Jane," which tells very amusingly the results of a hospital strike that in actual life would, I imagine, have provided little humorous relief. By this time you may have gathered that what matters about Mrs. RINEHART is not what she says but the way that she says it; upon which hint you can act as fancy dictates. * * * * *