Winning a Wife in Australia. By A. Dennison. (Ward, Lock,
and Bowden.)—Mr. Dennison has, in this volume, achieved what may fairly be assumed to be his chief object, that of depicting country life in Australia—an Australia that can hardly be said to be of yesterday—with its full out-of-door vitality, its incessant activities, and its variety in the way of personal incidents. The romance of the story is the old European one of the weakness of woman and even more of man. Claire Quentin and Arthur Ogilvy are two young folks of the conventionally impressionable sort, who do not, in reality, know their own minds till near the last page of their story. They are, therefore, on the verge of making shipwreck of such happiness as they can fairly be said to be entitled to. Arthur, engaged to Mabel Marston, falls violently in love with Claire, and Claire, though married in name to Jack Steel, imagines herself not to be married in heart to him, and, for a time, is quite willing that Arthur should, by the processes of law, annul this union so that she and he may go off together. Fortunately, character triumphs in the end ; in other words, Claire discovers not only that Jack is a hero, but that she loves him passionately, and Mabel and Arthur pair off quietly. The most Australian bit of romance in the book is the love-affair of Alick and Rosie ; it smacks of the country air, and of the " natural morality" which dominates the stories of Jock o' Hazeldean and the young Lochinvar. The rather violently introduced episode of the " half-marriage " of Jack and Claire is the only weak element in an artistic, enjoyable, and wholesome story.
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