22 JULY 1865, Page 21

Miss Russell's Hobby. (Macmillan.)—A clover story, with a dull and

unnatural plot. The hero, whose age is till the end very carefully concealed, lives with his sisters, one of whom is a strong-headed, deep- hearted, unjust woman, and the other belongs to the curate-hunting variety of the genus fool, and is greatly oppressed by both. One day he brings home an orphan to be brought up, and Miss Russell determines to bring her up as a servant. Mr. Russell, however, takes first a paternal and then a lover's interest in her, and the book turns on the morbid jealousy of his affection entertained by the strong-willed sister, who can love him deeply, but not with self-sacrifice, and who cannot bear the idea of his either marrying or going his own way. The little ways and jealousies and excitements of a narrow and old-fashioned household are admirably described, and we have little.doubt that the authoress with a pleasanter subject will write a successful book. As it is, the two sisters stand always in the foreground, and are nearly as unpleasant as they would be in real life to any one nearer to them than the reader can by possibility be. The book produces a feeling of pain, which is not sympathy or sorrow, but pure annoyance—an annoyance apt to be trans- ferred from the subject of the book to the book itself. An artist who had lived in the Pyrenees 'might paint goitre wonderfully, but who would enjoy the picture ?