20 NOVEMBER 1897, Page 13

A Transatlantic Chatelaine. By Helen Choate Prince. (Gay and Bird.)—Miss

Prince's heroine, Silvia, is the most unlucky of her kind. She has a mysteriously unsatisfactory father ; marries a husband who promptly marches off to shoulder a musket in the Civil War and is killed in battle ; has a lawsuit with this husband's relatives, and is made very unhappy by it, though she is successful; and then goes to France. Here her ill-fortune reaches its climax; but we must leave the reader to discover for himself. This same Silvia is finely drawn, and we are inclined to wish that her creator could have found it in her heart to give a happier destiny. But it seems that the tale-writers of the day think it vulgar to be happy.