5 MARCH 1887, Page 22

Margaret Jermine. By Fayr Mader,. 3 vole. (Macmillan and Co.)—The

story opens with just such another unnatural episode as repelled us at the outset of "Thereby." There it was a duel in cold blood between two friends who had grown weary of life ; here it is =a case of paralysis of the affections in a young widower towards the child of the wife whom he had idolised. As love has only brought him sorrow, he is resolved it is a mistake, and convinced that man, in order to cease to suffer, mast cease to love; These doctrines he formulates in a treatise on the erroneousness of love, and further carries them oat in the education of his child. This is an unpromising beginning, bat the working out of the idea is much better than its conception.