Down the Way. By Hope Stanforth. 3 vols. (T. and
R. Maxwell.) —This is a family chronicle, simply told, though the family history is, we are bound to say, of a curious kind. Mr. Hilton is the owner of a good landed estate ; but unfortunately has no son to inherit it. He has to make an heiress of one of his five daughters ; but then, she must marry some one who is worthy of the place. The first and the second of the five do not fulfil his expectations, and his hopes centre in the third. We naturally expect that this young lady is to be the heroine of the story, and we do, it is true, bear a good deal about her. But the real heroine is the fourth daughter, Laura, a plain and disagreeable girl when we are first introduced to her, but strangely transfigured when she falls in love. This humanising pro- cess is described with some skill. The young woman does not become • an angel at once ; but she finds what she had missed all her life— affection, and the finding developes all the finer part of her nature, and even changes, in the subtle way such influences have, the look of her face. This part of Down the Way is certainly good ; and the whole is promising.
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