Throstlethwaite. By Susan Morley. 3 vols. (Henry S. King and
Co.)—This is a novel of more than average merit. It is to be highly praised for the moderation, the truly artistic moderation, with which both character and incident are handled. The plot is formed out of a perfectly natural and probable complication of social life ; there is not a trace of exaggeration in the way in which it is worked out. The heroine has formed, or rather grown up, into an attachment for a young man, not wholly unworthy, but not worthy of her. How she is made to see in time an unsuitability which would have wrecked the happiness of married life, and is brought, without incur- ring any suspicion of fickleness, to turn her affections to where they may be more properly set, is told with much skill, and in a way which never allows our interest to flag. True to her principles to the last, Miss Morley rejects the temptation to which nine out of ten tale-writers would have succumbed, and refuses to endow her heroine with the magnificent fortune which it was in her power to bestow. Every char- acter is judiciously managed. Leonard is weak, but not a villain; Agatha Kennedy worldly, but attractive ; Colonel Kennedy an honour- able, sensible man, with nothing remarkable about him, yet well worth meeting in a novel, as such men are well worth meeting in real life. We have been much pleased with Throstlethwaite, (what a shibboleth the word is I) and recommend it without fear to our readers.
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