Indiana village life has been made the subject of careful study by Anna Nicholas, in a series of short stories collected under the title “An Idyl of the Wabash” (1899). Religious phenomena have greatly attracted Miss Nicholas, and she has supplemented Dr. Eggleston’s studies of an earlier period with her artistic sketches of contemporary life. The social importance of the church, the vagaries of belief in a typical Western village, and the intensity of the “revival” spirit are treated with sympathy and humor. Several of these tales are, between the lines, a tribute to that vigorous Protestant evangelization of Indiana, which triumphed over mud and malaria and carried the gospel far beyond the sound of church bells. Miss Nicholas has written with keen penetration of the suppressed tragic element in rural life, but without morbidity. Her characters are always inevitably related to the incidents, and she communicates with unfailing success a sense of the humble atmosphere of her farm and village. These stories are distinguished by the evident sincerity of their purpose to reflect life honestly, and they are written in a straightforward manner that aids the impression. They illustrate anew the possibilities of a local literature that follows progressively the formative years of a community’s life. It is even now difficult to persuade the present generations of Indianians that Dr. Eggleston’s Hoosiers ever lived; and Miss Nicholas, Mr. Riley, and Mr. Tarkington have continued the story that was begun by their predecessor, adding chapters equally instructive and valuable. Mary Jameson Judah’s “Down Our Way” (1897) is not limited to a particular region, but combines with studies of the author’s own Indiana, sketches of social life at the South. The allurements of those organizations for individual improvement and general reform that have enlisted the energies of so many women in recent years have appealed to Mrs. Judah’s sense of humor; and her stories show a fine appreciation of the niceties of social perspective and proportion in Southern and Western cities. The short story is happily adapted to the need of the casual observer of local life, and tales like these, which bear the stamp of fidelity, have an inestimable value for future students. An increasing attention to local historical matters has lately been marked, and an excellent instance of this is afforded by Millard Cox (“Henry Scott Clark”) in “The Legionaries” (1899), a story of the Morgan raid into Indiana. The political and social conditions on the Indiana-Kentucky border during the Civil War were interesting, and worthy of the study that has been given to them in this novel. The military episode of which Morgan was the chief figure, though slight in comparison with the larger movements of the war, was dramatic and daring, and it lends itself well to this romantic setting. Mr. Cox is a native Indianian (1856).