Miss Devereux, Spinster. By Agues Giberne. (J. Clarke and Co,)—Miss
Devereux, a lady rising forty, as the saying is, and a woman who has never known what it is to do a thing for herself, is appointed the guardian of an orphan nephew, Cyril. The nephew is treated like a porcelain vase for years, but finally rebels, and Sybilla Deverenx has to yield up her authority at last. The study of her character is really a very clever one, though we get a little bored with her, so thoroughly is the portrait worked out and every detail insisted upon. Her garrulity, her narrow- ness, her unfinished sentences, and confused ideas, her terror of the east wind and wet feet, and her total lack of humour, are almirably rendered; we all know the Miss Devereuxes of life. Much care has been taken with many other characters in this story; but the effort is wasted, as the story is inordinately long, though the dialogue and the scenes and the writing are all equally good.
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