• Jenifer. By Annie Thomas (Mrs. Fender Cudlip). 3 vols.
(F. V. White and Co.)—This is about as strange a story as ever was seriously told. Mr. Ray dies suddenly, leaving a will which gives his property, excepting E200 a year settled on his wife and daughter, and a small sum to the younger son, to his heir. The heir comes home, with the wife whom he has secretly married on the very day of his father's death. The new mistress of the house behaves abominably then and afterwards, and finally drives mother and daughter away. Among other misdeeds, she encourages the second son to marry the gamekeeper's daughter. But there is a "red in pickle" for these misdoers. There is a "sealed letter," which the family lawyer is to produce three years after the father's death. Three years elapse, the letter is produced, and it is found that the elder son is to remain in possession if he has behaved dutifully to his mother ; otherwise, he is to yield up the property to his younger brother, if he has not married beneath him. Both' ifs" failing," the daughter is to have it. Nobody attempts to question this mysterious document. Whether it was a regular Will or no, it certainly had not been proved. Both brothers give up possession or expectation with- out a word, and then the lawyer magnificently says to the daughter, whom he is going to marry, "Give it back to your brother." And yet some impudent American tells us that all the stories are told ! For all this, there is some vigorous writing in the book. The lawyer's position, who sees the trouble coming, is bound to keep silence, and cannot even propose to the woman he loves, has a certain dramatic force about it, or would have, if the circumstances were less absurd. And there is an interesting account of the heroine's efforts to make a career as a public singer. One sentence we may take leave to quote,—" A woman who makes money pawns herself by marrying, and never seems able to pay up the interest, far less to redeem herself."
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