Our Charlie. By Vera Haldane. (Richard Bentley.)—This is a story
of the present day, or rather story it is none. It is simply an account of a number of women that Our Charlie falls in love with, or who fall in love with Our Charlie. They are not connected in any way, nor is there anything in the shape of a plot. The hero, the Charlie in question, intends to propose to Lady No. 1 at p. 29, but is baulked; he then flirts up to p. 142, where he is engaged to a second ; at p. 161 he marries a third; at p. 201, a fourth is introduced, who kills him at the end of the volume, p. 292, when he had returned to his first love. This is of course very absurd. At the same time there is promise of better things in the book. The dialogue is amusing, and some of the characters are pleasantly sketched. If the author will bring bin dramatis personce within manageable limits and connect them together in some closer association than the names in a visitors' book, if at the same time he will check a tendency to certain affectations in style and situations that are at least of questionable propriety, he may produoe a novel that will find its way to shelves other than those of the seaside librarian.
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