Her Convict. By M. E. Braddon. (Hurst and Blackett. Os.)—
"Miss Braddon" might have written this story forty years ago, save, it may be, for an occasional anachronism,—we did not think so much in those days, for instance, about prehistoric man. If it had appeared in succession to "Lady Audley's Secret," no one would have noticed a change of manner or a falling off in power. The whole has something of a melodramatic tone; this or that detail
may be open to criticism. We cannot help thinking that Randolph Hammond's villainy is of an improbable sort. Men do not begin a career of crime with anything so elaborate. This is a different kind of improbability from that which we may see in Vera Pen- royal's first acquaintance with " her convict." The maxim that no one becomes a great criminal or a very ingenious one all at once holds good in the region of romance as well as in real life. For the rest, we always welcome the activity of "Miss Braddon's " indefatigable pen.
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