21 DECEMBER 1889, Page 22

Annabel. By M. E. Burton. (Griffith, Farran, and Co.) —

Annabel is taken away from the orphan asylum in which she has been brought up by an uncle who offers to maintain her. This uncle turns out to be a very curious creature, a crippled dwarf, with a mind almost as distorted as his body, who keeps the "Mammoth Furniture Stores," and owns small-house property in the neighbourhood. He is hard and grasping; but he has a heart somewhere. The life which Annabel leads with this unpromising relative is described with no little realistic force. And then we have the story of how she becomes a good influence in the old man's life, a certain Harry, who is related to him in the same way, being the bad one, and how she triumphs in the end.