18 AUGUST 1894, Page 26

.A Beginner. By Rhoda Broughton. (Bentley and Son.)—Miss Emma Jocelyn

feels constrained to give the world the benefit of her views upon one of the questions which we are always being told it is necessary to face. Accordingly, she writes a novel, into which she introduces some very startling situations, by way of illustrating her views of the action of heredity upon morals. She is really a quite well-meaning, right-minded young woman ; but. her book is startling. Such things Etre not done with impunity. What "woes unnumbered spring" from the said novel,- " Peliching Mallecho " is its title—Miss Rhoda Broughton tells in a capital story. Miss Emma complicates the situation by a very pronounced admiration—quite Platonic and literary— for a young writer who happens to make her acquaintance. How the two causes combine to pile vexation on vexation, and how at last one is made to dispose of the other, is the subject which is treated in A Beginner. The dialogue is always excellent. Mrs. Chantry acts the grande dame, Lesbia the foolish matron,. Mr. Greville the shrewd and warm-hearted man of the world, to perfection. If some real. "beginner" should be warned against• writing the rubbish which some are so eager to inflict on the world, Miss Broughton's tale will have done more than amuse.