3 JULY 1886, Page 26

A Lucky Young Woman. By F. C. Phillips. 3 vols.

(Ward and Downey.)—There are different ideas of " look," and some might think that Marcia Conyers does not meet with such exceptional good-fortune as makes her lucky par eawellence. She loves a lover who might have made her happy, and though we have her safely landed on the lofty levels of the Peerage, we feel that she has missed something. The poor lover, too, goes to the bad, not in any coarse, violent way, bat not less really, loses his faith in anything but success, makes a loveless marriage, and gets, and, what is worse, is content to get, only the outside goods of life. As he deserves a better fate, this, we suppose, is realism, which abhors especially any- thing like poetical justice. Marcia's career is fall of interest, and though we can hardly believe her to have been so great a fool as to be taken in by Lord Harry—perhaps this is realism again,—we follow her changes of fortune with sympathy. The tale is especially good as it approaches its end. We most object, by the way, to the heretical description of "Athole Brose." According to " Boswell's Johnson," it is made of whisky and honey. How in the face of this can Mr. Phillips talk about "fine French brandy ?"