The Red House by the River : a Novel. By
G. Douglas. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—Out of quite ordinary and evory-day materials, Mr. Douglas has constructed a very pleasant and refreshing novel. It is pleasant to find that there are a few tale-tellors who will trust to the simple pathos, the transparent motives, and the generally uneventful occurrences of country towns and villages and their inhabitants, for the main interest of their stories, and it is refreshing to find that success attends their efforts. In this story, the heroine, Madge Rosewell, is the oft-painted "winsome wee thing," with whom everybody, including the reader, is most unreasonably in love ; and who nearly breaks the heart of her true lover, by wantonly throwing him over in favour of a smart man from town. The true lover is one Robert Heron, a carpenter and a Radical—a faint reflection of Felix Holt—and the only fault we have to find with him is that he is so very faultless. The scamp from town is Jonathan Mettle, who, after "seeing life' for some years, settles down as " factor " in the neigh- bourhood of the Scotch Lowland town, whereof the heroine's father is provost. All ends well at last, but how everybody (including good Robert Heron) comes by his own again in the third volume we do not mean to disclose. If our readers will begin this story, our experience tells us that they will finish it. It is thoroughly fresh and pure, bright and natural; the people in it are nearly all "nice," and a gentle simmer of interest, without excitement, is evenly sustained throughout. But we rebel against our author's decision to drown poor Edna, so very unnecessarily, as it seems to us. She was only moment- arily in the way, and we think we could have seen a plan for dis-
posing of her in a less summary fashion.
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