The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-12-17
decs-1o-1a-l5-l7.sI ian47-IO.12-14

all ad miers of the Poet-Astronomer,'
upon the facts of whose career the present
story is based The principal characters.
after Omar, are Nizam ul Mulk, the
good and noble Vizier of the reigning
Sultan, and Hassan ibu Sabah, the cruel
and wicked founder of the scot of the
Assassins.
The scene of the story is chiefly in Nish-
apur in the Province of Khorassan, but
partly in the Mountain fortress of Ala
NUT, and it is thrilling tale of love, in
trigue and religious fanaticisms. while
every scene is permeated with the poetry
and the orientalism of the country and
nation pictured at the time OF it's highest
civilization and refinement.
The Road to Paris is story Of adven-
ture, by the author of those popular and
clever books, An Enemy of the King.
and The Continental Dragons. 1t is a
beautiful volume to see and to handle,
and most entertaining tale as we'll. 1t
has foundation of pure history, and the
hero is an American whose ancestors
were Jaoobites, but whose immediate
family settled in Pennsylvania sin the
good old colony times" The story takes
us from America to Quebec, and thence
to London and Paris, and there are many
astounding adventures. Battle and i'm
prisonment, danger and escape. love and
intrigue go to the making of this story
which is one of absorbing interest, and
remarkably we'll wri tten.
Dick Wetherell is the hero, and we first
know him as tiny lad, bright. brave
and bonny. and interested in all that he
hears and sees. Then come the days o.
the Indian outbreaks, and Dick, now 6
sturdy youth. is in the midst OF it all
Later he is called to join the troops al
Bunker Hill, and thence goes to Quebec
But all this gives no idea of the inces-
SAINT excitement and danger, the stir
ring events, which the author takes many
pages in describing, and which win b.
enjoyed by the older as we'll as the young
er reader. All the boys will delight in
following Dick on the road to Paris-and
| no wonderl
Miss Dromgoole's two volumes, Three
Little Crackers, aud The Fortunes of {
Fellow, are like all her books for the
young, unusually readable, wholesome
and clever. The three little crackers from
| Down In Dixie were not born there, bu
| went from their home in Alabama tx
live in Flol ida, and such guod times al
| they had The writer of this story who is
/ believe a young southern woman,
knows every inch of her territory, ant
the southern setting makes pretty ant
picturesque background for her story.
| 1t was after all a good day for JOSIE
and Jimmie and Jackie when the steam
er "dumped them, as the pioneer wifi
and mother had said at the point neal
what was to be their new home in thu
Florida wilderness. But they all came t.
like it, even Polly the parrot; though
after all. perhaps pioneering is mor'
agreeable to read about than to experience
The other book is companion to Mis-:
| Dromgoole's The Farrier,s Dog. 1t il
a dainty and pretty volume and charm.
ing story.
The same may be said of Miss John
ston's The Gate of the Giant Scissors
which will surely attract many young
readers; for it was the same skilled hand
and bright mind that gave the little folk
Ole Mammy's Tormen t. and The Little
Colonel. In this story little Joyce is in
France with her kind Cousin Kate, b u
one evening she is homesick for hel
mother, and Jack and Mary and the ba By
-and SO her cousin finding tears on her
cheeks takes her In her arms and tell
her such lovely fairy story-and all the
children who can must read it. port
land: Loring. Short & Harmony
Nd. L. B. w.