The Basket of Fate. By Sidney Pickering. (E. Arnold. Os.)
—The beginning of this book is melodramatic and impossible.
Be a man never so weak, he would hardly, while staying in Scot- land, venture to go through the Marriage Service for a bet, even
if the bride appeared to be quite a little girl. The legal position also of Awdrey, the heroine, seems doubtful, and surely before the real hero—the uncle of the bridegroom of the beginning—had married her, be would have taken steps to make quite certain
that the first ceremony did not hold good in law. Apart from these objections, the story is a lively sketch of present-day
manners, not particularly remarkable for originality, but brisk and pleasant reading. There are touches of picturesque writing in the descriptions of the scenery of the French watering-place, St. Aurelian, and of the heroine's home in another seaside village in Cornwall. The "bad influence" of the book, Awdrey's stepsister Theo, is not a very convincing figure; but she and her lover provide the necessary bitter in a dish which would otherwise prove rather too sweet.
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