Mariane/a. By Perez Caldds. From the Spanish by Clara Bell,
(Gottsberger, New York ; Triibner, London.)—Books from Spain are not so common but that they excite a special interest. This is but a slight story, and the motive is not, we should say, new. A young man blind from his birth loves the girl who has been his constant companion. But she is plain, and even deformed, while his face and figure are of remarkable beauty. He is restored to sight by a skilful oculist, and among the first shapes which he sees is a beau- tiful cousin. The struggle in the girl's mind, her anxious wish that the blind man should have his sight, and her certainty that when he recovers it he will give elsewhere the love that she prizes, her passionate appeals to the Virgin to help her, even, as in her despair she prays, to give her beauty, are very pathetically told. With true art, Sefior CalclOs makes the cousin who unconsciously supplants the first love a very model of kindness and guilelessness. There is some really good work in this sketch, and we gladly welcome it.
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