Gabrielle de Bourdaine, by Mrs. John Kent Spender (Hurst and
Blackett), is a story in three volumes, and, as its title indicates, gives the history and adventures of a girl belonging to an old French family, but who, for most part of the time with which the tale con- cerns itself, is living in Guernsey. She has more freedom, living alone with her father after her English mother's death, than a French girl in France would have, and she is sent to England to finish her education ; yet she is bound in a thoroughly French fashion, by a family compact, to marry her cousin, the son of her father's only brother. He has been brought up as far as possible by his father in the style contemporary with the old regime ; but his own tastes are literary and modern, and he leaves the brilliant circles of Paris with regret, to visit his countrified cousin. It is easy to imagine what complications might arise under such circumstances, and though there is nothing very striking or original in Mrs. Spender's narrative, it contains quite enough of interest to make readers who have taken up the first volume desire to finish the third. There are hero and there inaccuracies which, whether those of author or printer, aro an annoyance to readers, and surely might be avoided, such as "affect " for " effect," and other mistakes of that kind ; and the cousin's name varies.
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