The Other Bond. By Dora Russell. (Digby, Long, and Co.)—
In this novel the hero's troubles are caused by his having engaged himself to a middle-aged bourgeoise, accepted .£10,000 from her, and subsequently allowed his affections to go astray to a younger, more attractive, and aristocratic lady ; but as it appears to have been distinctly understood that the bourgeoise only let him have the money because he was going to marry her, we do not feel much inclined to pity him when she insists on his performing his part of a bargain that was not particularly to the credit of either of them. The spectacle presented by him and almost all the other dramatis personce is that of married people in love with somebody to whom they are not married. And as this state of things is not in any case a very agreeable foundation for a novel, and still less so when neither story nor characters have any originality or freshness to make them interesting, and when all the latter are either mercenary, purse-proud, foolish, vulgar, or dissipated, we do not quite know why either author or pub- lisher should have thought the world required the book's appear- .auce.
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