Tstre8.-4 Winning Hazard. By Mrs. Alexander. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—Mrs. Alexander
is scarcely at her best here, but she is quite good enough to be a long way before most of her contem- poraries. The conclusion is a little lame. One of the characters, the heroine we may call her, comes into a fortune, the " hazard " of the title, and marries her lover; the others are left, so to speak, to shift for themselves. Still, the reader will not complain. He has been in the company of pleasant people, and has not had a dull minute, and has heard nothing which he would wish to forget.
We cannot say quite as much of Wisdom's Polly, by A. V. Dulton (Bentley and Son). The complication seems to have been introduced, not because it was likely to happen—it seems to us quite unsuited to the character of Eleanor—but because it was necessary for the construction of a plot. Apart from this the story is good.—The Vanished Emperor. By Percy Andreae. (Ward, Lock, and Bowden.)—This is one of the romances of modern polities in which various countries, monarchs, and statesmen appear under slender disguises. It reminds us of the "Sceptre and Crown ; " but it is impar Achitti. We do not gather that the writer has been behind the scenes ; this is essential if we are to have anything beyond newspapers and blue-books dramatised.—The Shadow of Hilton Pernbrook. By Atha West- bury. (Chatto and Windus.)—This is the story of a "claimant," complicated with hypnotism. Novel-readers will have no diffi- culty in supposing that a good many sensations may be evolved out of such a situation. They will not be disappointed by The Shadow of Hilton Pernbrook. Our own taste is for something with more art and less colour.—An Unconventional Girl. By L. Rossi. (Lawrence and Bullen.)—Linda L'Estrange is a person who, as soon as she reaches a responsible age, keeps us perpetually on the tenter-hooks. That is not altogether agreeable, but it is better than if she were so dull or so odious as to make us bring the story of her adventures to an abrupt end. No one, we venture to say, will fail to follow the heroine to the end, and will be glad that nothing worse than a cigarette stands between her and happiness.—Battle and Breeze. (S. W. Partridge.)—Here we have three short stories, of which it will be sufficient to say that they are written by Mr. Henty, Mr. Manville Fenn, and Mr. Clark Russell.
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