His Sister's Hand. By C. J. Wills. 3 vols. (Griffith,
Farran, and Co.)—In this novel, Mr. Wills makes his readers the victims of what seems to us an extremely stupid practical joke, a kind of freak which seldom misses a certain taint of commonness. The story proceeds in the ordinary manner from the opening to the finish without any perceptible break, and as we approach what seems to be the denouement, it assumes a most melodramatically exciting character. The heroine has been done to death by her guardian, who, from being a model of kind- ness, rapidly develops into a monster of iniquity ; and the hero, her brother, who has avenged his sister's taking-off by murdering the scoundrel in a French railway-train, is being laid under the knife of the guillotine. It is just descending when we make the discovery of the nature of Mr. Wills's little joke, if little be the proper epithet for a joke spread over some seven hundred pages. The whole of the story, with the exception of the first few chapters, has been dreamed by one of the characters, whose digestion may be supposed to have been upset by the heroine's rejection of his suit. The guardian remains the good man he has always seemed, the heroine is alive and well, there has been no murder by any- body, and the story proper—as distinguished from the nightmare —comes to a sudden and cheerful end. A hoax of this kind is unworthy a writer of Mr. Wills's undoubted cleverness.
Of books about London we have :—Herbert Fry's Royal Guide to London Charities. Edited by John Lane. (Chatto and Windus.) —This is the "twenty-eighth " annual issue.—London of To-Day. By Charles Eyre Pascoe. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.)—This is an eighth edition, brought up to date, and containing copious in- formation of all kinds, whether for business or for pleasure, to any who may stand in need of a guide. " A Friend to the Stranger, Philosopher to the Londoner," is Mr. Pascoe's description.
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