This is the story of an American whose nature is refined in the fire of war. It begins in the easy-going days of travel abroad when young Dayton meets Elizabeth Brown and becomes informally engaged; and goes on to the artist life in Paris when he meets Elise, a joyous young Parisian girl of the lower class. Suddenly called home and prevented by accident from communicating with Elise, he marries Elizabeth with the determination to be true to her. Chance takes him to Paris, and there three things happened: he learns of another daughter, the child of Elise; Maria, Elizabeth’s daughter, dies of typhoid; and the Germans strike. Both he and his loyal wife plunge into the war, and in the ordeals which there confront them the dross of his nature is destroyed. THE MAN FROM AUSTRALIA By KATHARINE TYNAN _The Man from Australia_ is the story of John Darling, who comes from the Antipodes to find his Irish cousins. How he finds them amid tragic circumstances: how he loves his cousin Aileen, over whom the clouds of tragedy hang darkest: how he loses and finds her, is the main theme of the story. The setting is in the Wild West of Ireland. THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES By GEORGE W. CABLE The scene is the ‘Vieux Carré’ of New Orleans, the last lingering place of the old Creole atmosphere. There Geoffry Chester, a young lawyer, is struck by the charm of a Creole beauty whom he daily meets on his way to the office. This is a case of love at first sight. On account of the exclusive character of the Creole coterie it seems destined to be limited to sight, but a bookseller consults him about an old manuscript of which Aline Chapdelaines is the owner. The fate of this manuscript in respect to publication and of Chester in regard to matrimony is the theme of a most original romance. HERITAGE By V. SACKVILLE-WEST Miss V. Sackville-West is already well known as a writer of distinguished verse, but this is her first essay in fiction. Her subject is the influence of heredity, and shows the effect of a strain of Spanish blood on a stolid Sussex stock, as manifested in the persons of a young woman and her cousin, whom she subsequently marries. The story has most unusual literary and dramatic values; but while it is first of all remarkable for its literary style, its beautiful descriptions and power of creative imagination, it presents against this background a steadfast realism of action and psychology. The biological parallel of the ‘waltzing mice’ that in some sense follow the fortunes of the heroine is an original and charming invention. _Heritage_ is certainly one of the most arresting first novels published in the last ten years. THE CARAVAN MAN By ERNEST GOODWIN