CURRENT LITERATURE.
Gardenhurst. By Anna C. Steele. 3 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)— This might be a good novel, but for the ending. It opens with some promise, runs a pleasant course, and then winds up atrociously. Forgetful of all her earlier pledges to healthy literature in the shape of pleasant and lively sketches of natural character, Miss Steele does her best to accumulate in her third volume all the exploded horrors and complications of the Minerva Press. We are tired to death of heroines who, on the first suspicion of unfaithfulness attaching to their lovers, marry some one whom they detest. We know too well that at a certain stage the husband will be reported dead, that the lovers will at once marry, and that as soon as they have done so the husband will reappear. This is as sure to recur in novels of the present class as a good business is sure to be spoilt by being transferred to a limited company. But Miss Steele has managed her complications badly, and has spoilt the genuine interest of her novel in order that she may fail in exciting interest of another kind. We confess that the promise of the first two volumes makes us the more disposed to resent the falling-off of the third, and that while we should have praised the book highly if we had not finished it, we now find it difficult to remember anything in its favour. The last taste lingers longest in the month, and the dregs poison the whole bottle.
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