Orchard Damerel. By Alan St. Aubyn. 3 vols. (Hurst and
Blackett.)—We must not doubt, we suppose, that there may have been a couple as silly and as ignorant of life as Robert Lyon, rector of Stoke Demerol, and Joan, née Benson, his wife. Yet their ignorance of the value of money is surprising, not, perhaps, in a young woman, whose capacities in this direction are quite boundless, but in a young man, who must at least have known what could be done with a curate's stipend, and have been able to work a simple sum of proportion with the new term of erector's. income. But whatever may be possible in man, we must draw the line when we consider what is possible in nature. The young rector and his wife go to see their new living in "June, the blos- soming time of the year." But, June as it was, "the sunlight. was dropping down on their path between the laden apple- boughs overhead,—Joan could not help remarking how laden they were as she looked up." The story is fairly good, and quite wholesome, a quality that is not so common as it might be nowa- days. Robert Lyon has a good deal of human nature about him, fool as he is. On the whole the book leaves a good taste, in the mouth. --Pamela's Honeymoon. 3 vols. By Mrs. Robert Jocelyn.. (Hutchinson.)—Mrs. Robert Jocelyn has certainly imagined a new complication wherewith to entangle her plot ; but it is always difficult to reconcile novelty and probability ; as to the probability, we do not feel quite so sure. More on this point we cannot say, for the story must be left without its mystery being intruded upon. There is certainly cleverness. about it; the writing is generally good, the dialogue easy and natural, and the characters invested with an air of life.
Previous page
