24 MARCH 1888, Page 22

A New Face at the Door. By Jane Stanley. 2

vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)—Mies Stanley's heroine is of the Becky Sharp order ; perhaps we ought rather to say that she is a Lamia. Opal Carew is a born adventuress, with more than a dash of the murderess. Her doings make, it may be supposed, a not very pleasant story. But such as it is, Miss Stanley tells it with some power. And she does more than tell a story ; there is real thought in her writing. Opal, repulsive as she is, is a real human creature, though of the very worst type. Greta, the good heroine, is, in her way, a study of some value; and the men are better drawn than they commonly are by a woman's hand.