NOVELS.
CROSSRIGGS.*
WHETHER they write separately or in partnership; the work of Miss Mary and Miss Jane Findlater is always welcome.
(The collaboration of sisters, we may note in parenthesis, is rare in the annals of fiction, though the work of the brothers Margueritte affords a happy example of fraternal partner.
ship ; and, if we mistake not, the brilliant authors of Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. are cousins.) Their outlook on life is not exhilarating, but they are far from proscribing humour;
and though the atmosphere of their books is generally autumnal, it has a tonic flavour, and is enlivened by frequent glimpses of sunshine. As in so many of their earlier volumes, the scene is laid in Scotland, but they are not specially concerned with
characteristically Scotch types of humanity. There is hardly a trace of dialect in the conversation ; and though one of the characters is a confirmed vegetarian, Crossriggs is emphatically
not a product of the Kailyard school. The leading characters in the story belong, without exception, to the middle and upper classes, and there is little on the surface that is distinctively Scotch about them. But as a picture of society in a small provincial town the narrative has so many lifelike touches that the authors will be readily pardoned for their frugal use of local colour.
Though there are several engaging characters in Crossriggs, it is essentially a novel without a hero. Robert Maitland is in many ways,qualified for the role. He is handsome, accom- plished, and generous. But his almost unearthly aloofness and self-restraint place him, as the authors themselves admit, in a category of well-nigh inhuman excellence, and no reader endowed with the smallest grain of sentiment will quite forgive them for handicapping him with a wife. Yet Laura Maitland, who is a variant of the mollusc type, is admirably drawn. Languid, correct, "like a doll just faintly endowed with a kind of second-hand vitality," incapable alike of mean- ness or magnanimity, and with "the impassivity of a very shallow mind," she is a woman who "gave you quite a start to hear her sneeze. It was like discovering that the police- man you thought a wax-work was alive after all." That is only one of the many happy comments of Alexandra Hope, the life and soul as well as the heroine of the story. Alexandra, or Alex as she is known to her intimates, is the younger daughter of a lovable, but egregiously foolish, old idealist. The entire burden of "running" the household, aggravated by the return of a widowed sister with a swarm of children, falls on her shoulders. Witty, well-read, and accomplished, she sacrifices her youth and health in a ceaseless struggle to make both ends meet. Admirably fitted to shine in any society, she is driven by her strong sense of duty to become a mere domestic drudge. Yet she finds time to inspire and stimulate all who come across her. Fortunate in her friends, she is luckless in love. The only man who awakens the tender passion in her is already married. She repels the advances alike of the honest James Reid, an unromantic middle-aged merchant, and of that ill-starred Prince Charming, young Van Cassius, yet womanlike feels more than a passing pang when the latter marries another woman. Alex is very happily compared by one of the characters to a spray of flowering gorse : "it prickles but it's sweet." • She has a sharp and even audacious tongue—indeed, her sayings and letters are a constant joy— but a warm heart and an unconquerable spirit. The close of the story, though it brings no peal of marriage-bells, and indicates her final severance from Maitland, is by no means without promise of happier days and reviving interest in the feast of life for this intrepid and high-minded heroine.
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