10 OCTOBER 1891, Page 41

CURRENT LITERATURE.

At an Old Ch4teau. By Katharine S. Macquoid. (Ward and Downey.)—Mrs. Macquoid introduces her customary dramatis personm, a French demoiselle and an English lover, but she does not deal with them in the usual way. The young lady has cor- tracted a secret marriage, why it is not quite easy to say, seeing that, for all we can understand, it might have been performed in public, and the young Englishman has nothing to do except to excite the young husband's jealousy. Here, again, we are some- what at a loss. Surely M. de Camaret might have guessed that a wife who had to pass as an unmarried daughter of the house, might have to appear more friendly to a stranger than she really was. The story, on the whole, is not in Mrs. Macquoid's best manner, though the surroundings of French life, the love-affairs of Anne Kerlaz and Desire' Leloup among them, make an effective background.