8 OCTOBER 1881, Page 20

CURRENT LITERATURE.

TALES.—The Falls of the Loder. By Rosa Mackenzie Kettle. (James Weir.)—Mr. Athelstan and his eldest son are drowned in the Loder, the second son is with difficulty saved, and loses the faculty of speech from the shock. His deliverer is another Athelstan, son of a disowned brother. The question is whether he is a legitimate scion of the house, or no. Then there are two Athelstan daughters, one of whom is the heir, should the second son die; and there are two Athel- stan cousins. Fora time, it seems that there is to be a very pretty family quarrel ; but in the end, all is made right. The doubtful Athelstan finds his mother in an unexpected place, a lady whom all thought of as an old-maid turning out to have been a duly wedded wife. The love-affairs are all righted, including those of a married couple who had agreed in simulating a mutual indifference which neither of them felt. Miss Kettle's story can hardly be called a success, when we compare it with work that we have seen from her pen in former days ; but it is bright and wholesome in tone, and quite readable.—The Heirs of Errington. By Emma Jane Worboise. (J. Clarke.)—There is a- certain old-fashioned air of leisure about the way in which Miss Wor- boise tells her story. We think of days when novels were few, and the hours we could give to them plentiful. Something reminds us of " Evelina " and "Cecilia," as we read. Sir Thomas Churchill has two daughters, and their very diverse fortunes are the subject of the story. The moral may be supposed to be that it is very much better for a young lady to be brought out in a quiet English Protestant home (it is a great point that it should be Protestant), than among the doubtful influences of Continental society. Poor Agnes, the elder daughter, falls in love with an unprincipled rascal (how any lady could have had anything to say to the vulgar fellow Miss Worboise describes is quite incomprehensible), and comes to a most miserable end.; Eleanor, the younger, makes the happy marriage which is the proper outcome of her sound moral, and religions education. A mild agitation is prepared for the reader, in the- shape of a "claimant." Thus the title of the Heirs of Errington is justified. We are in constant doubt as to who really answers the description. Agnes, Eleanor, a little son born to Sir Thomas of a second marriage, have the prospect in succession. Finally, the claimant appears, the best and kindest of his race, and an amicable arrange- ment is effected. This we will leave the reader to discover for him- self, only remarking that it looks fur easier upon paper than it pro- bably would be in real life. There is nothing very striking about the story, and it is certainly a little too long for these evil days of hurry; but it may be read by a reader not too conscientious to skip from time to time with sufficient pleasure.---Dorothy's Daughters. By Emma Marshall. (Seeleys.)—Mrs. Marshall always enforces the lessons which her tales are intended to teach, with tact and taste, and the volume before us is no exception to the rule. The moral is excellent, —that a young man of earnestness and piety should not allow him- self to be captivated by the outside charms of a worldly beauty. It is one which, if we may judge from a number of instances more or less pertinent, it is peculiarly difficult to practise. Let us hope that Mrs. Marshall's well-written story may make this difficulty some- what less for the serious youth of this generation, and anyhow, that when the disenchantment comes, the young man may find someone as sweet and good in reality as Dorothy's datighters are in Mrs. Mar- shall's imagining, to console him. The incident of the fortune seems to us somewhat of a mistake. Surely, it is a little worldly, this en- dowing the hero of such a story as this with great wealth ? Of course, he made a good use of it, and subscribed to the Church Mis- sionary Society, and so forth ; but it is probable that he also bad a butler, and kept a carriage-and-pair.—Mrs. Perkins's Daughter. By the Marchioness Clara Lanza. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.) —Jessie Perkins comes over to Europe, in company with a vulgar father, and a brother who is nothing better than a snob. She is a very smart young person, and pretty withal, with "banged hair," whatever that may be. The contrast between her gentility and her kinsfolk's vulgarity gives occasion for some comic business, which some readers doubtless find amusing, but which is, to us, somewhat painful. Various scenes of Continental life are pourtrayed, and at last we leave the heroine a Countess and the wife of a royal aide-de-camp. Nothing more like Paradise could be imagined, even though Perkins the elder does whisper, "-It may be a good sort of thing, but hang me if there isn't a deal more money to be made in the pig-business over in Chicago." To an English reader, the whole story, whatever the clever- ness with which it may be told, seems a little tedious.—The Story of Helen Troy. By Mrs. Burton .Harrison. (Sampson Low and Co.)— It is not easy to forgive the catchpenny title. The heroine has nothing in the world to do with the "Spartan woman." She is a type of the American young lady belonging to the upper ten, whose fortunes we are called upon to follow with sympathy. And, indeed, they are told not without something of spirit and humour. Only, why is everything and everybody so enormously wealthy ? Once we fancy that the heroine is to come down to the level of ordinary mortals, who have to care about their butchers' bills, and so forth ; but a Providence in the shape of a wealthy kinswoman intervenes, and she is spared the humiliation. The story is curiously suggestive, all the more so because of the writer's unconsciousness, of the worship of the "almighty dollar."