SELF-CONDEMNED.* Ws can most of us contemplate with equanimity, if

not with satisfaction, the endurance by others of the punishment their misdeeds entail, and it is possible that some choice spirits may experience a kind of logical though grim joy in suffering the penalties attached to their own bad actions. But few persons, we fancy, are to be found possessed of the stern courage dis- played by the heroine of these volumes, who judges herself

• $etf.Condemsed. A Novel. By Mrs. Alfred W. Hunt. 3 vols. London; Chatto and Windup. 1883. "

mercilessly, without regard to any of the extenuating circum- stances which the reader perceives so easily, and turns the key upon herself in a sort of moral gaol for what, after all, seems to be no very dire offence. It is advisable, no doubt, to be well off with the old love before being on with the new, and a pretty woman cannot be too careful of the manner in which she distributes her smiles ; but Katherine Carey was not really guilty of the offence implied in these trite warnings, nor responsible for the unhappy results of the offence she actually committed. She supposed herself to be in love with Roger Hackblock, but this was before she knew what love meant, and she had, besides, been so brought up by her parents, whose interests were bound up in the match, that she came to regard herself as destined by a sort of natural process to be- come Mrs. Hackblock, in due course. Nor was the son of the senior partner in the big blacking house of Hackblock, Higgins, and Hackblock possessed of any of the attractions, physical or mental, which young ladies, in or out of novels, usually look for in their lovers. He had a large, bony, flattened nose, eyes of a " cold, unspeculative, unkindly blue-grey," coarse, characterless mouth, and equine teeth. It was too plain he was " one of the great army of Philistines," of whom it could be foreseen that he "would live and die a hard, calculating, money-making machine," spending his whole life and energies in making a large fortune larger, and looking upon all originality as proof of knavery or lunacy. How could such a man hope to find favour in the eyes of a girl of whom a single glimpse, as she distributed strawberries to a group of ragged urchins in a dull Westminster street, drew from Lewis Barring. ton, successful writer of novels, leading articles, and plays, the energetic exclamation, " If ever I marry, that shall be the woman 1" Lewis Barrington meant what he said, and early in the second volume becomes the accepted lover. How could it be otherwise ? He had none of the defects Roger had, and possessed most of the virtues and good qualities Roger had not. Then Katherine's troubles begin. She loses her mother, to whom she is tenderly attached. Her father, who is a partner in the Hackblock firm, is turned oat, upon the discovery by mere Hackblock of his daughter's passion for Barrington, and dies penniless and miserable. Katherine, considering herself the cause of these disasters, refuses to see her lover, and takes a situation as a sort of help in the house- hold of a good-natured, but fidgetty and whimsical old lady, full of aesthetic oddities, who makes life a burden to all around her. At last, however, she relents, and permits herself to enjoy a vision of happiness. But terrible events tread close upon the heels of this concession, and once more she condemns herself to a punishment which has become harder than ever to bear, and which to us seems less than ever merited. Of the final result we shall say no more than that we trust we have discovered in a phrase used by a friend of Katherine's—page 282 of the third volume—the right solution of the problem suggested by Bar- rington's exclamation at the beginning of the first.

At Mrs. Hunt's treatment of her heroine we must confess to feeling a little indignant. Barrington, despite his literary talents, rouses no admiration in us. He is a selfish fellow, does nothing great or noble, and condescends to adopt a mean dis- guise for the purpose of procuring an interview with Katherine, whence flow all her miseries. Her one fault, the weakness she showed on this occasion, is surely visited far too heavily ; and it is with scant justice, artistic or other, that she is made the scapegoat for the sins of her relations and lovers, without com- pensation and with little commiseration. We can but trust that in that fourth volume which will never be written, she is enjoying all the happiness which the undeserved calamities that have befallen her in the three we have before us entitle her to claim.

For the rest, having gulped down our indignation at the hard measure allotted to the heroine, we can honestly say that Mrs. Hunt has written a most amusing novel. Intertwined with the fortunes of Katherine and her lover are those of a delightful artist, Frank Davenport, and his even more delightful wife, Nancy. Davenport is one of the numerous class who make money with difficulty, and spend it with ease. No sooner does he find his purse weighted with a little cash than he runs off to buy knick-knacks, amber necklaces, and Japanese dresses for his wife (who is in sad want the while of flannel petticoats), and on one occasion an immense carved and gilt bed, which fills up their bedroom, but which he declares it is an education in art to sleep in. It must, however, be added that his moral perception is less keen than his artistic, for to Nancy's distressing cough and haggard looks, due in great measure to the various domestic worries his thriftlessness causes her, he pays little attention. There are moral Philistines, we fear, to be found among those who consider themselves least akin to the dwellers in Gath and Askelon. Some of the sketches of certain aspects of modern society are most amusing, showing a good deal of observation in their gentle sarcasm, and a lightness and picturesqueness of touch that add both to their truth and interest. Katherine, in her palmy days, takes it into

her head that she would like to know something about cooking. So away-she trips to South Kensington, that home of the utile et duke, and in a " plain morning-dress, large apron, with pocket, bib, and brown-holland sleeves," feels "quite a good little kitchen-maid."

There she learns to scrub pots and pans, make currant dumplings and daintier dishes, and is in the act of tracing scales on the back of a portion of fish and mashed potatoes, moulded into the form of a haddock, when her occupation is put an end to by the

sudden apparition of Lewis Barrington. A motley crew enough were her fellow-students. Servants who wanted to improve

themselves, mistresses who wanted to know how to teach their servants, young ladies with much time on• their hands who wanted to do something with it,—all under the dominion of a couple of servants, and a " handsome lady-superintendent."

"The real ladies accepted the work which was given them, and set about doing it with hearty good-will, saying little or nothing about dirt or difficulty." But the would-be ladies,— " Tried to assume the airs of princesses driven out of their kingdoms, and kept up a continual buzz of exclamation to the servants, to them- selves, and to every one who came in their way, about the strangeness

of finding themselves doing such menial work Most of them showed a strong disposition to avoid all contact with base metals, by wearing cheap, dirty-white kid gloves. None of them had apparently ever been brought face to face with a black pan before, nor did any seem to have been positively informed that kitchen utensils did not clean themselves."

The description of a haymaking fete, too, is capital. The hay- . field was hired for the occasion ; the young ladies wore pink calico and white sun-bonnets, the gentlemen blue blouses and straw hats, into which they put themselves with a certain shamefacedness. They soon got tired of forking the hay, and cried out for rakes, as more picturesque. Of course there was not mach haymaking done, and the farmer had to call in a troop of buxom village lasses to complete the task ; but there was a good deal of lunching, popping of champagne corks, and various merriment, just dashed with a notion of labour, to lend a sort of reality to the play. - The most

finished portrait in the book is perhaps that of Mrs. Wilbraham, with whom Katherine found a refuge after her father's death in

the capacity of a companion or help. Her principal occupation consisted in looking after the msthetic education of all about her. She maddened her housemaids by making them quit dust- pan and broom to look at a fine rainbow-effect, wanted to have her meals in the garden, that the servants might have the opportunity of smelling the fragrance of flowers and hearing the song of birds, and desired them to put no starch in their petticoats, that the natural beauty of the lines of the figure might not be distorted or hidden. With a true love of beauty and con- siderable cleverness she is nevertheless silly, the type of a too numerous class who hang about the confines of art, and imagine themselves entitled, by reason of a certain impressionability they possess, unaccompanied by any power of expression, to regard the rest of the world as mere Philistines. Despite her foolishness, however, Mrs. Wilbraham, by dint of natural honesty and unselfish simplicity, completely foils the grim Mrs, Hackblock in an amusing conversation on the subject of Katherine's enormities, which will be found in the third volume.

It is on the sketches of surrounding life it contains that Mrs. Hunt's book will depend for its popularity. She has a firm, graceful touch, a command of good-natured sarcasm, and an easy, fluent style that prevent her from ever being dull, or often common-place. But she is unequal, her work lacks completeness,

and she does not always take the trouble to do justice to her evident powers.