Kate and Jean. By Jessie M. E. Saxby. (Oliphant, Anderson,
and Ferrier.)--Shall we call this a didactic story with an element of love-making, or a love-story with a moral ? There are three heroines, a poet, a philanthropist, and a baronet, who, alas ! follows the bad example set him by his fellows in fiction, and is very wicked. The poet, however, does him poetical justice, for he administers a sound thrashing. The love-making is a good deal at cross-purposes ; but everything comes right in the end. The worst fault in the book is its want of relation to actual life. It is perhaps possible that a strong-minded woman such as Kate should be so unutterably foolish in money matters. But when it comes to her getting £300 for a serial story in a magazine after a few months' experience in literature—we find her first serving in a tobacconist's shop—the most long-suffering of critics protests.
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