Eight cousins : or, The aunt-hill

;GOOD BARGAINS. 199" Well, the fellows in these books are mighty lucky,and very smart, I must say," answered Will, surveyingsan illustration on the open j^age before him, where asmall but virtuous youth is upsetting a tipsy giant in abar-room, and under it the elegant inscription :" DickDauntless punches the head of Sam Soaker."" It gives boys such wrong ideas of life and business; shows them so much evil and vulgarity that theyneed not know about, and makes the one success worthhaving a fortune, a lord's daughter, or some worldlyhonor, often not worth the time it takes to win. Itdoes seem to me that some one might write stories thatshould be lively, natural, and helpful, — tales in whichthe English should be good, themorals pure, and thecharacters such as we can love in spite of the faultsthat all may have. I can't bear to see such crowds ofeager little fellows at the libraries reading such trashweak, when it is not wicked, and totally unfit to feedthe hungry minds that feast on it for want of somethingbetter. There ! my lecture is done ; now Ishould like to hear what you gentlemen have to say,"and Aunt Jessie subsided with a pretty flush on theface that was full of motherly anxiety for her boys."Tom Brown just suits mother, and me too, so Iwish Mr. Hughes would write another story as good,"said Archie." You don't find things of this sort in Tom Brownyet these books are all in the Sunday-school libraries "— and Mrs. Jessie read the following paragraph fromthe book she had taken from Will's hand :—"' In this place we saw a tooth of John the Baptist.Ben said he could see locust and wild honey sticking