in the reader and clamour for quotation on the part of the reviewer.  “Meredith,” we are told, “who did not know Mill in person, once spoke to me of him, with the confident intuition proper to imaginative genius, as partaking of the Spinster.  Disraeli, when Mill made an early speech in Parliament, raised his eye-glass and murmured to a neighbour on the bench, ‘Ah, the Finishing Governess.’” Or we are introduced to SPENCER at MILL’S table:  “The host said to him at dessert that Grote, who was present, would like to hear him explain one or more of his views about the equilibration of molecules in some relation or other.  Spencer, after an instant of good-natured hesitation, complied with unbroken fluency for a quarter-of-an-hour or more.  Grote followed every word intently, and in the end expressed himself as well satisfied.  Mill, as we moved off into the drawing-room, declared to me his admiration of a wonderful piece of lucid exposition.  Fawcett, in a whisper, asked me if I understood a word of it, for he did not.  Luckily I had no time to answer.”  Or again:  “Another contributor [to The Saturday Review] was the important man who became Lord SALISBURY.  He and I were alone together in the editorial anteroom every Tuesday morning, awaiting our commissions, but he too had a talent for silence, and we exchanged no words, either now or on any future occasion.”  How charming a picture is this of two shy British publicists maintaining towards one another, against every possible discouragement, an inviolable silence.  Not even the weather could tempt them to break it.  Yet the great characteristic of this book is the large-hearted tolerance of comment and judgment which makes it emphatically a friendly book.  As such I commend it with all the warmth in my power.

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For her new story, Missing (COLLINS), Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD has used her knowledge, already proved elsewhere, of two settings, the English Lakes and a Base Hospital somewhere in France.  Also perhaps her knowledge of human nature, though I like to think that there are not many elder sisters so calculatingly callous as Bridget.  The bother about her was that she sadly wanted her attractive younger sister to marry a sufficient establishment, not, I fear, from wholly altruistic motives.  So she was not altogether sorry when the impecunious soldier-husband, whom Nelly had personally preferred, was reported missing, thus leaving that to chance once again open.  Then, just as her plans seemed to be prospering, word came secretly to her that there was a man shattered and with memory lost in a base hospital who might possibly be the brother-in-law whom she so emphatically didn’t want.  What happens upon this you shall find out for yourself.  Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD, as you will notice, has no fear of a dramatic, even melodramatic, situation; handles it, indeed, with a skill that the most popular might envy.  Thence onwards the story, perhaps a trifle slow in starting, gathers force.  The two visits to the camp at X——­ (a very thin disguise for a place that no Englishman of our time will ever forget) are admirably vivid; the last chapters especially being as moving as anything that Mrs. WARD has given us, whether in her popular, profound or propagandist manner.