A Rich Man's Relatives. By R. Cleland. 3 vols. (F.
V. White.) —There is an agreeable novelty about the circumstances of Mr. Cleland's story. The scene is laid in Canada. The "rich man" is a Southerner, who has found his way to Montreal, and who, dying shortly after the opening of the tale, leaves his property in a way that brings about not a few complications. His younger sister has married against his will,—married a professor of music, for whom in his pride as a landowner he entertains the greatest contempt. He leaves his property to accumulate for twenty years. It the end of that time it is to be divided between any of his sister's children who may be then living. In case there should be none born, or none should survive, it is to go to a nephew, Ralph Herkimer by name, or rather to the nephew's son. The schemes of Ralph to turn this contingency into a certainty form the main plot of the noveL Mary's little child is, under his management, carried off by an Indian squaw. The reader will naturally suppose that she reappears when she is wanted. Whether she does, or how she does, he may very profitably find out for himself. Mr. Cleland's book is thoroughly readable from beginning to end. It is not only that the life which is sketched in it is novel to most of us, but that there is most undoubted vigour in the drawing of character and in the social pictures. The less agreeable side is represented by Ralph Herkimer and Mr. Jordan, the lawyer, with their speculations and unrighteous schemes for the hasty accumulation of wealth. Then there is the French-Canadian society as represented by M. Rouget, seigneur of some barren tract which he wants somebody else to develop for him. The figures, too, of the Indians who play their part in the drama are excel- lent ; not the Indians of romance, let it be understood, but the actual Indians who loaf round the confines of civilisation. Altogether this is decidedly above the average of novels.
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