A Romance of the Tuileries. By Francis Gribble. (Chapman s and
Hall. 6s.)—Mr. Gribble treats a subject which has often been made the occasion of work that is bad in every sense with tact 'and delicacy. The heroine, brought 'up in a remote Picardy chiteau, makes, or has made for her, a mariage de conversance. She does not like it, for she has had her dreams, wholly apart from the actual, it should be said ; but she is not strong-willed enough to resist. A kindly woman of the world, who understands the case, gives the fiancé a chance of awakening some genuine feeling, but he is too proud or too dull to compre- hend, and the couple have to " dree their weird." We will not follow the story further ; let it suffice to say that it is skilfully worked into the history of the '48. The reader when he closes the book will not thank the author the less if he should picture to himself how a French " Naturalist" would have dealt with the same theme.
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