Under Suspicion. By Edith Stowe. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—A story with
a plot just sufficiently involved to arouse a half-waking attention, and written in flowing but rather dull and not distinct or emphatic language, often achieves a certain success among a number of people who lazily take up a book for casual mental occapation—something that has a relation to the mind, much like that of " carriage exercise " in a well-cushioned closed carriage to the body. It would perhaps be scarcely fair to class Under Suspicion with this class of books ; but it comes so near to them, that it cannot be called strikingly in- teresting, nor are the principal characters so depicted as to make ne care very much what becomes of them in the end. Plot and treatment are conventional, if not commonplace, though there is a morose and portentous nobleman and his charming daughter ; a wealthy retired tradesman who buys the Welsh mining property of the impoverished nobleman ; a false and cowardly officer of title who makes love to the daughters of both ; and a rigbtfal heir who, in the disguise of a manager at the works, sees everything, and righteously deceives everybody but the reader of the story, who pro- bably sees his real personality and his intentions very aeon after his appearance on the scene. There are hundreds of less interest- ing books sold to beguile long railway-journeys, and to wile away the hours between luncheon and 5 o'clock tea on rainy, dark afternoone ; and it is quite possible that the ensuing enjoyment of cheerful company at dinner and a pleasant evening would be enhanced by reading it.
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