Two Strides of Destiny. By Brookes Buckle°. 3 vols. (Samuel
Tinsley.)—The first thing that strikes us in this book is the extra- ordinary climate of the spot where the scone is laid. It is " in the heart of the mountainous district of North Wales," and yet in the month of March, "winter's snowy clothes having melted from the tops of the moun- tains," we find a lady reclining on a sloping lawn, and a dog eating a bone under a flowering chestnut. But if the season was forward, it was nothing to the young lady to whom we are soon introduced. She makes acquaint- ance with a stranger in the freest fashion possible, arranges meetings with him, and ends by falling so frantically in love with him, that discovering that he is married and is going away, she makes this modest request
:- "Take me with yon, try me for one week, Ralph ; and if you do not find me what you hoped, send me away." The author does not see any harm in this, for she is always assuring us that her heroine is the simplest and purest little creature possible. Still, when obstacles are removed and the lovers are married, she seems to remember the claims of virtue, and the heroine is struck by lightning on her wedding-day, and becomes a hopeless maniac.
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