Lady Tel's Elopement. By John Bickerdyke. (Hutchinson and Co.)—We may
say at once, to avoid misapprehension, that the " elopement " is a sham. How it is a sham the reader may, if he please, discover for himself. Lady Val is very badly treated by her husband, and it is in the fortunes of this pair that Mr. Bickerdyke seeks to interest us. He would have succeeded better in this attempt if he had kept himself more to his proper role. This, we take it, is to describe sport, with more or less fiction thrown in. Nor should we have complained if, for a change, he had given us the strong sensation of the punishment .of the wicked baronet by the Nihilist. But there is much in the tale that is decidedly out of the author's line. His °biter dWta on various important matters about which he manifestly knows nothing, are often offensive.—A Fatal Mistake, by Henry Murray (Ward and Downey), is a story above the average of merit, though it is not worked out very clearly. We must own to having failed entirely to comprehend the character of Florrie. Ronald, on the other hand, with his obstinate adherence to a kind of art which he believes to be his calling, though it fails to find purchasers, is a fine study.--A Fair Palmist. By Amyot Sagon. (Hurst and Blackett.)—There is a murder and a secret, which, however, the more experienced among the readers of A Fair Palmist will not have much difficulty in guessing. The Palmist herself, though a picturesque figure, might have been spared from the tale. Palmistry is really a form of the supernatural, and is as difficult to manage in fiction as other things of the kind.
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