The Wild Warrington& By Arnold Gray. (Tinsley Brothers )— The
Warringtons are very wild indeed, being much wilder than the Thackerayan variety, whether English or Virginian. They are, as a matter of fact, mad ; and the terrible " mystery " which Lady War- rington confides to Fenwick, friend-in-chief to the "family," is that her husband, Sir Rupert Warrington, died by his own hand, and con- fessed to the madness in his blood. Certainly a tragic end is in store for four of her children—Agatha, MildredtRapert, and Wolfe. Even David, the youngest, and most fortunate, is eccentric enough in all conscience. He becomes a gamekeeper, plays the flute to admiring rustics at "The Dog and Badger," and marries an undenkeeper's (she might as well have been the traditional ratcatcher's) daughter. But then he "has drunk-in plebeian proclivities with his foster-mother's milk," and the family curse passes away from him when he marries Eve Lawrence. The story is an improbable one, and some of the characters, especially Miss Lindsay Avenel, a murderess in intent, are unpleasant and unnatural. Yet there is a good deal of humour in Mr. Gray's picture of the company that assemble in "The Dog and Badger," and in his drawing of the aunt of Eve Lawrence, who keeps lodgings and is yet socially ambitions. The love-story of David and Eve is a simple and agreeable one. Mr. Gray would, we are inclined to think, develop into a good novelist if he would leave dismal and impossible tragedy and confine himself to bright and enjoyable, even if not quite possible, comedy.
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