8 FEBRUARY 1873, Page 20

A House of Cards. By Mrs. Cashel May. A. New

Edition. (Chapman and Hall.) Buried in the Deep, and other Tales. By Mrs. Cashel Hoy. A New Edition. (Chapman and Hall.)—We spoke of the great merits of Mrs. Cashel Seers vivid and vigorous tale A House of Cards when it first appeared, and we are happy to note that a new and cheap edition has been called for, and is now issued by Messrs. Chapman and pall. A House of Cards certainly contains Mrs. Hoey's best con- structed plot, if it be not altogether her best novel. The story is wary animated, and the murder scene perhaps a little too exciting. The volume of shorter tales is also full of ability, and of the kind of ability we do not often get from a lady. Perhaps the best tales are those we should least expect from a lady's pen, like "A Shot in -the Scrub," which is told with ell the verve and animation of an ex- perienced Australian settler. Others, like "Dalcie's Delusion," a story of a very different type, contain subtle sketches of character. Some of 'these tales should have been expanded, and look as if they had been novels truncated into tales.—for instance, "Buried in the Deep," which comes to no denouement, and leaves the heroine and the reader alike in an unsatisfactory state of mind. Still the volume is full of clever and spirited narrative and delineation.