THREE FAIR MAIDS.*
THE "paying guest" is a recent development of which little use has yet been made in the tale of social life. Anything like a novelty in this department of literature opened up a pleasant prospect, and we hoped much from what Miss Katharine Tynan would do with it. The situation seemed to promise well. An ancient Irish family, much reduced in circumstances, determines—or rather an energetic daughter of the family determines—to turn an honest penny by re- ceiving paying guests in the ancestral mansion. It seemed an unnecessary complication when the manager of the affair resolves to conceal the family name. To create a secret which could not possibly be kept was a mistake. Still, this also might be made useful in thickening the per- plexities of a plot. In due course the guests arrive, and one of them makes himself disagreeable, somewhat in the fashion of the hero in Goldsmith's famous comedy. But after this the idea is virtna lly dropped. The author seems to find it not to her taste. It favours comedy rather than sentiment, and it is to sentiment that she inclines. What we actually get, therefore, is a love story in three parts. There are "three fair maids," and therefore, for in this province of " fiction- land " all things go well, there must be three good matches. It is true that the paying guests supply one of the three, and would willingly supply another. But the " Ould Counthry," we are glad to say, does not suffer the Saxon to carry off more than one of such prizes as the Burkes of Derrymore. There are still Irish Peers and squires who possess a decent rent-roll. But the three marriages of the three maids do not satisfy the requirements of the occasion. There is a love affair in humble life which ends with the worsting of a villainous "Auld Robin Gray" by the apposite return of the true lover from Klondike with 22,000 in his pocket. This is one of the best things in the book. The description of the negotiations, in which every item of the bride's outfit is fiercely disputed between the father and the bridegroom, with the matchmaker to see fair play, is an admirable scene. And so is the abrupt turning of the tables
Three Fair Maids ; or, The Darius of Derrinnore. Ey Katharine Tynan. London : Inacklaand Bon. Eta]
"Two thousand pounds ! D'ye hear that. Paddy O'Keefe ? What's your dirty little shop and your common little Jaunting car to that, hey ? That's the soort o' man I want for a son-in-law; not join, you dried-up little carcase of a man, wid your ugly yallow face. You'd take the calf off me, would you ? an' the couple o' boneens an' the woman's flock o' geese ? Oeh, you'd strip me, or you wouldn't take my little fair, soft, innocent girl ? Now, I tell you plainly, she isn't for you, Paddy O'Keefe, nor for any of your mane sort.'
But do Irish peasants sell their daughters in quite so shame- less a fashion ?
Then there are other matches, so many in all that there positively ought to be a table of them. One brings with it a little touch of tragedy,—the only one that the author permits herself. Indeed, there is no room for tragedy in such a tale. For if some one should ask, Is not this a novel in disguise ? we should certainly say "No." The differences are many and great, but perhaps the most important of them all is the absence of that artistically doleful ending which turns the novel reading which was once so pleasant into a mere penance. By the way, what does Miss Katharine Tynan mean by " sorra the collo)) he'll get here " ? " Collops " are not " chops" but "mince." The word has no singular.
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