Silver and Gold. By Jessie Sale Lloyd. 2 vols. (F.
V. White and Co.)—This is really very poor work indeed. The first "silver and gold" in the story are furnished by an old man's silver hair, and his granddaughter's golden locks. Sir Henry Baxindale gives the two hospitality when they are perishing with cold, and finds his reward. Sir Henry's position is a painful one ; he is bound to have a son, in order to keep out a wicked cousin from the estates, and, unfortunately, he has only a daughter, his wife being still living and likely to live, besides being the most disagreeable woman that we ever encountered in or out of fiction. Years go by, and we have the " silver and gold" in another shape. The disagreeable wife dies, with an earnest hope that her husband will marry again. And marry he does, and whom but the golden-haired young damsel whom he had taken in some sixteen years before. But sixteen years have made some streaks of silver in his hair, while they have given new beauty to the gold on the other side. The wife turns out, if we have read the tale aright, to be the daughter of the wicked cousin, and in the last chapter the "joy-bells are ringing" for an heir. This seems to us, to speak plainly, a somewhat silly tale. Nor is it very much improved by the manner of telling it. Were ever pronouns more muddled up than here ?—" Maurice Baxindale was the only son of the late baronet's younger brother, and his conduct was such that he simply ruined his father and broke his heart, and he gladly welcomed death to release him from the sorrows that hemmed him
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