The Trust : an Autobiography. By Joan lo Pour. (Samuel
Tinsley.) —The assumption of a male name by the lady who writes this Auto- biography is oven less successful than assumptions of the kind usually are. The book is not only a woman's, but it is also a womanly book, which is a very good quality in it. Tho incongruity of calling the girl's story an autobiography, and then assuming a man's name, is characteristic of the entire novel, which is very incongruous, but by no means without merit. The author cannot manage a mystery, so that the fatal sapphires attached to the Hilliers family, and to which the attention of the reader is directed in the first chapter, do not mean a groat deal in the end; but she can sketch characters very fairly—best, surprising to say, when they are amiable and harmless characters—and she has a quiet sense of humour, which enlivens the meanderings of a not very enthralling narrative. The Quaker connections of Mies Ellis are interesting, quaint people, as convincing of their likeness to life as Mrs. Oliphant's Dissenters at Carlingford.
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