Under the Will, and other Tales. By Mary Cecil Hay.
3 vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)—Here we have a collection of short tales, which have, we presume, appeared before. Such tales are not attractive when they are thus brought together, though they fulfil their purpose of supply- ing what it is the fashion to call "padding" sufficiently well. The tale from which the volumes take their title is a good sample of the whole. There is some tragical force in it, though, perhaps, we are hardly prepared as yet to appreciate the pictures which it draws for us of a claimant who commits a fraud from the very highest and noblest motives. Miss Hay should use more restraint and moderation in her style. It is not by the" poetical prose " which she is wont to write when her narrative rouses her, that the masters of the art are accustomed to produce their great effects.
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