Both Sides of the River. By Cecilia Selby Lowndes. (Seeley
and Co.)—This is a most detailed study of English still-life, executed in the well-known conscientious style of its author. The leading characters in it—barring Maurice Hammond, a lover of the former, who plays, however, a rather subordinate part in it, except at the end —hold to each other the two relations of cousins, and governess and pupil ; and Miss (?) Lowndes exhibits her skill as a plot-constructor chiefly by making one of these leading characters, Madge, play both of her riles with equal success. There is a scoundrel, too, an uncle of another leading character, Rica (whose father had made an unfor- tunate marriage), against whom Madge has to defend both her charge and her own reputation, and who deserves special mention from his portrait being no skilfully executed. Victor Gage, indeed, looks as if he must have been drawn from life. As for the part which the river mentioned in this story plays in the lives of the dwellers on both of its banks, we must leave the readers of it to find this out for them- selves We can only say that, next perhaps to a certain quiet rectory, it supplies the element of repose.
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