A fray Woman. By M. F. O'Malley. 3 vols. (Smith
and Elder.)— Angela, the heroine, certainly exercises in a most conspicuous and de- termined way the woman's privilege of changing her mind. Indeed, we cannot acquit her of a certain want of self-control, which we should be sorry to think characteristic of woman at her best. She falls in love with Harry too readily, and yields to the fascination of her second lover with a weakness which might have wrecked her happiness. Altogether, Frank, whose somewhat masculine tastes seem to agree with her mas- culine name, with her true womanly tenderness and sympathy for trouble, is more to our liking. Possibly Miss (or Mr.) O'Malley wishes us to have our choice as to whioh we shall consider to be the real "very woman." However, the two couples ultimately "sort themselves," and all is well. A Very Woman is written with much literary skill, and is eividently the work of a really cultivated person. Altogether it is a refreshing contrast, for freshness and vigour, to the majority of the novels that come before us ; but it would not have been the worse, if the episode of Vivian and Inez had been left out.
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