19 OCTOBER 1895, Page 26

Real and Unreal. By Catherine E. Mallendaine. (S P.C.K.)— There

is no little merit in this story, though we cannot think that the central idea is a very happy one. That such a man as Maurice Kennedy should ever have done the deed which poisons his life seems improbable. Or, not to insist upon this objection, is the problem in casuistry which the story presents—what is a wife to do when she discovers a dishonourable secret in her husband's past ?—one with which it is well to trouble the young readers for whom such volumes as this are, we presume, intended.