#The Elder's People#, by _Harriet Prescott Spofford_ (Houghton, Mifflin Company). Mrs. Spofford has collected in this volume the best among the short stories which she has written since 1904, and the collection shows no diminution in her powers of accurate and tender observation of New England folk. These fourteen prose idyls have a mellow humanism which portrays the last autumn fires of a dying tradition. They rank with the best work of Miss Jewett and Mrs. Spofford herself in the same kind, and are a permanent addition to the small store of New England literature. I wish to call special attention to "An Old Fiddler," "A Village Dressmaker," and "A Life in a Night." #The Valley of Vision#, by _Henry van Dyke_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). This volume of notes for stories rather than stories themselves calls for no particular comment save for two admirable fugitive studies entitled "A Remembered Dream" and "The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France." These seem to me creditable additions to the small store of American legends which the war produced, but the other stories and sketches are rather bloodless. They are signs of the spiritual anæmia which is so characteristic of much of American life. #The Ninth Man#, by _Mary Heaton Vorse_ (Harper & Brothers). When this story was published in Harper's Magazine six years ago, it attracted wide attention as a vividly composed presentment of human passions in a mediæval scene. The allegory was not stressed unduly, and was perhaps taken into less account then than it will be now. But events have since clarified the story in a manner which proves Miss Vorse to have been curiously prophetic. In substance it is very different from what we have come to associate with her work, but I think that its modern social significance will now be obvious to any reader. Philosophy aside, I commend it as an admirably woven story. #Anchors Aweigh#, by _Harriet Welles_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). I think the chief value of this volume is as a quiet record of experience without any remarkable qualities of plot and style, but it is full of promise for the future, and in "Orders" Mrs. Welles has written a memorable story. The introduction by the Secretary of the Navy rather overstates the case, but I think no one will deny the genuine feeling and truth with which Mrs. Welles has presented her point of view. #Ma Pettengill#, by _Harry Leon Wilson_ (Doubleday, Page & Company). I must confess that temperamentally I am not inclined to rank these humorous stories of American life as highly as many critics. I grant their sincerity of portraiture, but they show only too plainly the signs of Mr. Wilson's compromise with his large audience in The Saturday Evening Post. They are written, however, with the author's eye on the object, and Ma Pettengill herself is vividly realized.