Those Three. By Emma Marshall. (Nisbet and Co. )—This is
not one of Mrs. Marshall's best stories—these, we take it, are her reproductions of bygone periods of life—but it is good of its kind. If it has a moral—and saying so much implies that the moral is not obtruded on the reader—this is to be found in the conversion of a family of wealthy parvenus to more considerate and kindly thoughts of other people. The "three" are sisters, whose individualities are well marked off ; the story of one of them, Joyce, is particularly interesting, with the element of love, often made too prominent in tales of this kind, kept exactly in the right place. Mrs. Marshall's power of pathos has seldom been more effectively exercised than in Those Three. We might criticise some improbabilities. The revengeful father has a somewhat un- English look about him. If he had done anything, he would rather have set fire to a rick or a stable than assault young Claude. But the chief fault that we find in Mrs. Marshall is the careless- ness of her style. 'She had no means which she thought at all sufficient to allow her to take up her proper position in the world." This is curiously awkward. Again : "In these days, taste is ruled by the opinion of decorators, and the very first decorator who understood the matter thoroughly, had been employed." This, as commonly taken, would mean that the owner had employed the first decorator whom he found to understand the matter. Of course it does mean : A decorator of the first rank, who under- stood the matter thoroughly.'
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