Straight as a Die. By Mrs. Edward Kennard. 3 vols.
(Chapman and Hall.)—The story of this novel has been told before, and that not once or twice only. We have the good daughter giving up her lover, and sacrificing herself for her mother by consenting to marry a wealthy reprobate ; the wealthy reprobate behaves after his kind, but fortunately comes to a speedy end, by an accident at a race- meeting. Then the rejected lover comes back, and the good people are happy ever afterwards. There are variations and episodes. The motive of the sacrifice is not the impending ruin of a father who has lost his ward's trust-money, or wasted his fortune in disgraceful speculation, but the commonplace embarrassment of a mother who has exceeded her income. The heroine, of course, has a brain-fever, and breaks a blood-vessel, a serious ailment from which she is saved by the death of her husband. Then there is a scene which might have been retrenched without lose, in which the old lover implores the heroine to leave her husband. If there is no freshness in the matter, there is a little force in the style. Whatever charm may belong to putting " matutinal meal " for breakfast, and " maternal parent " for mother, it has, but nothing more.
Previous page
