Rose Turguand. By Ellice Hopkins. 2 vols. (Macmillan.)---Rose l'arquand is
the daughter of an unhappy marriage, who is thrown on the cold charity of relatives to whom her existence is a continued trouble. Her relations with these people are described with consider- able power, but, as may be imagined from the subject, the power does not leave a pleasant impression. The utterly selfish and pitiless aunt is made too revolting, though there is a redeeming touch, put in with no mean skill, in the sense of duty which makes her nurse with all the care and resources at her command the child in whose death she would have rejoiced. The bright side of Rose's life at this time is her relation to the unworldly scholar from whom she learns to love knowledge. In course of time she discovers, by the operation of a cruel and, we cannot but think, somewhat unlikely scheme of her aunt, the existence of a deformed child, who, as a blot in a family of brilliant beauty and a possible drawback to their career, had been carefully hidden from the sight and knowledge of the world. Then the love-story begins, and it is told well. It is by far the best, as it is the most interesting part of the novel, though it would not be fair to pass by without praise the pathetic account of the loving tendanee which Rose gives to her miserable cousin, and the very powerfully conceived scene of the aunt's death. Rose Turguand, though it has its asperities and faults, rises much above the ordinary level of novels.
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