Love in Idleness. By F. Marion Crawford. (Macmillan and Co.)—
This is a short story, some hundred and sixty pages, neither large nor closely printed, and it is certainly slight in texture. It is of the "no-incident" kind, and the love-making of which it consists is just a little drawn out. Still, it has much of the attraction which characterises Mr. Crawford's work. If there is little beyond talk, the talk is certainly brilliant. The two rivals are well- drawn figures, the meaner of the two being, perhaps, the better study ; Brinsley is of a type of cad which one recognises at once. We should like to have heard something more about the three Miners sisters, poor ladies who are pathetically commonplace and uninteresting.—Another volume uniform with that noticed above is The Rubies of St. Lo, by Charlotte M. Yonge. Here one cannot complain of want of incident, so far at least as the winding-up of the story is concerned. The reader will feel sadly disappointed when the heroine, charming in spite of her aggres- sive honesty, seems likely to lose the prospect which was begin- ning to open up before her. But Miss Yonge is equal to the occasion. Nor will any one object to her way of solving the difficulty, even if it does involve a very strange coincidence. Altogether, The Rubies of St. Lo is a pretty tale, with just that gentle insinuation of some excellent morals in which Miss Yonge is so expert.
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