The Quaint Companions. By Leonard Merrick. (Grant Richards. 6s.)—Mr. Merrick
has divided his story into two distinct parts, of which the first is concerned with the struggle in the mind of a young English widow as to whether she shall make a mercenary marriage with an American singer who is a man of colour. The second, and far more interesting, part deals with the poet-son of this strange marriage, to which the woman had finally made up her mind. The character of David Lee, the boy who unfortunately is born almost as dark as his father, is very sympathetically drawn, and though the story is not so poignant as Mr. Howells's "A Question of Colour," David is quite attrac- tive enough to make the reader very sorry for him. The coinci- dence of the girl—herself a hunchback—who reads his poems, and engages in a correspondence with him without knowing that he is coloured, is perhaps a little far-fetched, but even here, when a possible comradeship opens before him, fate has not done inflict- ing its blows on the unfortunate mulatto. He asks for the picture of his unknown friend, and she, unwilling to disturb his ideal of her, sends the photograph of her beautiful sister. Further complications arise after this ; but the reader at last leaves David with the fair prospect of a happy friendship with the deformed girl. The book depends for its success entirely on the character of David, and it says much for Mr. Merrick's skill that it should be impossible for the reader not to feel real regret for the hard lot which he deals out to his hero.
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