Shallows. By Myra Swan. 2 vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)— This
is a distinctly effective story, though there is not a little, both in the construction of the plot and in the drawing of the characters, that lays itself open to criticism. The empty-headed. heartless Kathleen of the first volume can scarcely have been the same woman that shows herself almost heroic in the second. Then the " cousinly " relations of the hero and Blanche had really a somewhat equivocal look. This young lady seems to have left her home and travelled about the country with Macleod Drum- mond with only the little boy Algy to play propriety. However, the story, after all drawbacks, is good. Algy is made an occasion for some very pathetic writing. It is difficult to read about his perils dry-eyed. But Miss Swan wisely resists the modern mad- ness for the dismal. She is too kind-hearted to part with her characters and her readers on other than cheerful terms. We may say, indeed, that she is kind-hearted almost to excess, for she says that the " train-service between Folkestone and London is as good as anywhere else in England."
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