Though men either read with strong appetites or not at all, their wives, in these days of education, generally love fiction. They do not want to be improved, but they like to lose their cares for a little while in some tale that excites either tears or laughter. It is all very well to say that they ought to have no time for reading. An industrious thrifty woman has little or none, but the cottager’s wife who does as little needlework, washing, or tidying as possible, has a good many hours to spend in gossip or in reading. She may get cheap sensational novels, and the effects on a weak and narrow mind are often very serious. The only thing to be done is to take care that she has access to a full supply of what can do her no harm, and may by reiteration do her good, though the links between book and action are in many cases never joined. Sometimes they are not connected at all, sometimes a strong impression is unexpectedly made. But this class of women must have incident, pathos, and sentiment to attract them. The old-fashioned book where Betty rebukes Polly in set language for wearing a red cloak instead of a grey one, and eating new bread instead of old, will meet with no attention. But if the moral of the tale be sound, and the tone of the characters who bespeak sympathy, high, pure, and good, the standard of the reader, however frivolous, must be insensibly raised. At any rate, by withholding books because the cottage woman ought to be too busy to want them, we do not render her more industrious, but we leave her exposed to catering for herself in undesirable regions. There remain the thrifty, sensible, good women who, if they read at all, do so in their Sunday leisure, and like a serious book. Neither variety of woman likes a book manifestly for children lent to themselves, though they do enjoy anything about a baby from the maternal point of view. There are such different degrees of intelligence and civilisation among the women who frequent mothers’ meetings that it is difficult to make suggestions applying to all. Some of these meetings are attended so irregularly that it is not possible to read anything continuous, whereas in others a sustained interest promotes regularity. A little religious instruction or exhortation, a little domestic or sanitary instruction, and a lively or pathetic narrative seem to answer best, and I have endeavoured to collect the titles of books useful in this respect. The two first, however, are best given extempore if a clergyman will come for the first, and a lady who has attended ambulance classes can be secured for the second. The lad or young man species comes next. There are a few of these with a thirst for information, and it is important to supply this in a sound and wholesome form. Some like poetry, but the general run can only be induced to read at all by adventurous or humorous tales.