THE MISTRESS OF LANGDALE HALL.* THERE is a naturalness in

this one-volumed novel, published in accordance with Mr. Tinsley's very wholesome one-volumed system, which will attract many quiet readers. It is mainly due

to the truth of the contrast depicted between the ancient and modern elements in Yorkshire and Lancashire, a contrast so marked

that in a walk of ten miles we sometimes seem to enter a bygone century. For instance, nine miles from Liverpool is a small village, built mainly of half-timbered houses, with a legendary giant on its ale-house sign, with an old church surrounded by ancient beeches, and a squire's mansion whose architecture, already a century old, suggests that its sometime owner made the grand tour and brought home Italian tastes with Lyttleton or Leigh.

And upon this sacred nook the biggest millionaire in all Liverpool cannot get leave to build a dwelling. The squire sets his face resolutely against modern commerce, and will have none of it. To him Lancashire is still the old stronghold of Church and King, and he isolates himself as completely in his quaint home, midway between Liverpool and Warrington, as if neither town existed on the map.

Much such a personage has Miss Kettle pictured in the mistress

of Langdale Hall, who by reason of her sex is even more obstin- ately bent on keeping her own little world in stain quo than any

mortal squire, required to sit on a magistrate's bench, can be. Maud Langdale dwelt in an old black-and-white timbered hall, with a battlemented courtyard and a Norman tower, having been built and patched at different times; and both tower and gables, though clothed with jasmine and ivy, were blackened with the coal smoke of not far-distant furnaces, whose existence was a horror to the proud, long-descended lady, and all the more because her cousin, Frank Langdale, a poor gentleman with a very large family, had taken a lucrative post as manager of one of these obnoxious newfangled establishments. Maud Langdale is undisputed heiress of her estate for her own life-time and one life more, and she tries to persuade her young half-sister Ellinor to offer herself as a holo- caust upon the altar of family pride ; to engage, like herself, never to marry, and to be, as long as nature should endure, the Langdale of Langdale Hall :—

" 'Eventually,' Maud continued, with bitter emphasis, the land must all belong to their couain Frank Langdale, the heir-at-law, and descend to his children, but as long as she lived, and it was in Ellinor's power to extend the exemption much longer, no coal should be dug, no stone quar- ried, no more railways be made in the dale. The one line which passed over the upper end of the lake and under the hill had been carried through the estate, against Maud's wish, in her father's life-time."

But though she was a sweet, gentle girl, Ellinor wouldn't ! She did not particularly care for any one, but she thought she might some day. As to the railway, she rather liked to watch the coloured signal lights, and see the trains plunge into or emerge from the tunnel under the great hill.

And there is a pretty picture of Ellinor waiting in the old oak- panelled ball, while the moonlight lay in a long line like water on the floor, and the sounds of social life died away, and silence settled down upon the valley. Presently all the dogs began to bark, and the mistress came riding very slowly up the avenue, and after dismounting unaided, threw the reins to a groom, and entered the house silently :—

" Miss Langdale pushed back her hat with an unwonted expression of lassitude, and finally, look it off, passing her hand over and through her short curls, and shaking them into order, much in the same manner that a water-spaniel might do after emerging from a stream or a pond. Winter and summer she spent most of her timo out of doors, returning home at irregular hours, and attending to few of the forms and habits of domestic feminine life. A plunge in an ice-cold bath, night and morn- ing, a rapid toilette, neat but plain, and scarcely altered by the change of season or fashion, satisfied the strong-minded woman, who though still young, eared-little for appearance. Ellinor's habitual attention to the conventionalities of life was a subject for ridicule with her sister. Miss Langdale drank off hastily the large goblet of water, the only beverage she patronised, which was placed In readiness for her; while Ellinor made tea for herself, in the little old-fashioned set of china, which would have delighted a cognoscente in such matters,—egg-shell cups, almost transparent, and filigree silver spoons and sugar-tongs."

This singular woman, being, as might be expected, disappointed

* The Mistreu of Langdale Mail: a Romance of the West Riding. By Rosa Mackenzie Kettle, London: Tinsley.

in her own sister, casts her eyes upon her cousin Frank's numerous flock. She will have nothing to say to him or to his eldest son., though the latter must in due course of time (when the two lives are expired) inherit all Langdale. But she hankers after the youngest girl, little Florence, and hopes to make of her the second Mistress Langdale, of Langdale Hall ; and she mikes very unpleas- ant overtures to the father, who naturally refuses, being loth to lose his darling, and still more so to sow division among his chil- dren by placing the youngest and a girl in so wholly different a worldly position. Maud, however, would not be baulked of her intention, and sent a message by her lawyer to say that she had altered her will, and had left the life-interest in the Langdale estate to Florence, whom she would at any time receive as its future mistress. And the sequel goes on to relate how the day came at last when Florence, a young girl on the verge of woman- hood, hears that her cousin Maud is dangerously ill, finds her way into the park, and to the sombre library, where Miss Langdale, no longer young, site silently with her disused riding-whip across her knees, brooding upon her baulked desires and the fatal progress of the nineteenth century ; and how Florence falls on her knees be- side this strong figure, and is clasped to her cousin's heart.

This picture of Maud Langdale is really terse and striking, and we could have wished the interest of the book more exclusively concentrated on her. The numerous other personages who exist side by side with her, and are connected with the fortunes of her one-time lover, Cuthbert Noel, detract from the unity of the picture, and we have no feeling that she bad ever really loved him. Miss Kettle has vigorously conceived a peculiar type of English- woman, in whom family pride and the sense of responsibility en- gendered by large possessions have conspired to deaden all other sensibilities. She may in her early youth have felt a tenderness for a handsome scapegrace, but that passing emotion bears so little relation to the character of her later years, that we should have been better satisfied if Cuthbert had been drowned out of the way, and a mere passing mention of the past been made.

We will just express our satisfaction at the portable and readable size of the book in which the tale is contained. We can well conceive that Mr. Tinsley's circular, which serves as preface, will suffice to set him by the ears with the Trade, which naturally dreads the loss of immediate profits according to the established routine. But we think he speaks quite truly, when, it propos of works like Lothair or New America, he says that :— " Had such books, or any of the successful works of the last few years, been published in a handy, portable volume, at a few shillings,. their circulation would have been larger by fifty times than it actually was. Large numbers would have been exported to all parts of the world by the trade and by travellers, vast numbers would have been purchased by almost every class of persons throughout the country, many subscribers to the libraries would have purchased copies, the- libraries would have used at least ten copies where they actually used one the actual profits would have been much greater, and the books would have found a permanent place in thousands of home* where the sensation caused by their publication is now entirely forgotten."