19 APRIL 1879, Page 23

The Curd's Niece. By Maurice Segrave. (Burns and Oates.)—The main

incident of this story is the self-devotion of a girl who denies the love which she really feels, because the mother of her lover is opposed to the marriage on which he is determined, and which he only abandons when he hears from her lips that she does not love him. The girl dies of a broken heart ; her uncle, the priest, spends the rest of his life under the shadow of a permanent gloom ; and the lover is certainly not the better, except it may be as to money (of which, however, his mother had abundance). This may be very good morality in France, but it does not suit us.