For Her Dear Sake. By Mary Cecil Hay. 3 vols.
(Hurst and Blackett.)—There is some cleverness in the writing of this book. There are graphic descriptions, forcible rhetoric which is not far from being eloquence, reflections which are true and acute, and life- like touches of character. But we cannot say that the story is, on the whole, successful. It strikes us as net beating any general resemblance to real life, though there are details which are true and natural. The firat incident of importance is the trial of a young woman for having written a threatening letter to her uncle, with the intent of extorting money. We may remark in passing, that English justice is not so Draconian as to exact the penalty of penal servitude for life for this offence from a girl of seventeen. The main interest of this story turns upon the question who wrote the letter ; but the reader is not likely to care much about the solution, which, indeed, when it comes, is quite unsatisfactory. The accused is acquitted, and then comes, incognita, to live as a companion to her own sister, who is domiciled with the very uncle who has been prosecuting her. This is a situation which is quite inadmissible, it seems to us, in a novel of real life. It is quite impossible that any sane person should have dreamed of doing such a thing. The heroine's love-story, if not so glaringly improbable, is, in fact, not happily conceived. That a young woman should forget her lover when she hears a false report of his marriage, is an incident at least sanctioned by long usage of romance-writing ; and equal authority may be pleaded for the lover, whose good-faith has been vindicated, resigning her to the saviour of his life ; but the combination of the two brings 1113 into a region which we do not recognise as familiar. The character of Ruby, the weak elder sister, is the best thing in the story.
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