Shadows Cast Before. By Massingberd Home. (Chapman and Hall.) —This
is a lackadaisical story about a young lady, whose name is Beatrice Vane, but whom her admirers call "Princess." She lives at G el oz, in the Basses Pyrdndes, with her cousin, Captain Treherne, a bored young officer of the conventional type, and his wife, a spiteful, unmean- ing sort of person, about whose role in the narrative the author seems to have changed her mind while writing the story. Beatrice is hand- some, romantic, and subject to presentiments ; indeed so much is she subject to them, that they are constantly occurring at the most unsuit- able times and in the most unlikely places, and all through the book the reader has an uncomfortable sense that each incident is only the shadow cast before of some other event. After a very mild experience of being crossed in love, Beatrice marries Sir Hugh Courtenay, a remark- ably nice fellow, one of the most pleasant and natural novel-heroes we have met with for a long time, and his fate inspires us with pity, for his bride is more beset with presentiments than ever, and she worries him and herself unmercifully, under circumstances in which the very silliest of all possible young ladies would have been induced, in real life, to rest and be thankful. Beatrice is, in fact, an intolerable bore, and when she discovers the hidden room, the mysterious documents, and the family secrets, and when all her presentiments fulfil themselves, we are un- able to compassionate her, however sorry we may feel for Sir Hugh. The merits of the story are its vivid pictures of the scenery and the life of the little Pyrenean town, some droll sketches of the natives, and the excellent English in which it is written.
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