act, and the story is undeniably dismal, she has conquered
these diffi-
eulties to a surprising extent Still, one naturally opens a story of bankruptcy with misgiving, and in merely turning over the pages of this novel one perceives that it is even more technical than its pre-
4lecessors of the "George Geith" series. Neither does it begin brightly; N
it is some time before one becomes interested in the complicated busi- mess relations to each other of the people in the book, and in the charac- ter of Mrs. Mortomley, the heedless, selfish, prosperous wife of the man destined to ruin, who so nobly redeems herself afterwards. But when Mrs. Riddell has arrested the attention of the reader, at first inclined to humanity, and we watch the changes of her affecon and of her fortune, wander, she never lets it go, but holds it throughout a strangely realistic with interest, though we cannot affect to feel much sympathy for and most touching narrative, in which she deals with equal skill with the Of the other characters little need be said None of them are conceived complicated roguery of Mortomley's enemies, and the exceeding heartless- netts of his friends, with the temptations and excitement of the lives of speculators, and with the noble story of domestic loyalty and love which
purifies the -atmosphere of greed, chicanery, selfishness, and baseness
in which the majority of her people live. We know several of them of No woman ever was so detestably and uniformly vulgar and mean.
old. Forde and Kleinwort are types which Mrs. Riddell made familiar A Chance Acquaintance. By W. D. Howells. (Boston, 17.S. : Osgood to us long ago, but they are needed for the purposes of the story, and and Co. London : Trlibner.)—This is a very pretty little story, written she could hardly improve upon them. She is successful with her woman with that delicate humour which is quite as characteristic of American portraits in this novel. Though there is no one among them so striking literature as is that boisterous and extravagant kind with which as Beryl Molozane, the heroine of George Geith's wretched story, both "Yankee drolleries" have made us familiar. Miss Kitty Ellison is on Nora Werner and Mrs. Mortomley have healthy vitality, and the latter a tour with some of her kith and kin, and falls in with a
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