An Innocent Sinner: a Psychological Romance. By Mabel Collins. 3
vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—The hero of this story is an unfortunate doctor, with whom a mysterious young woman falls in love at first sight, and falls, too, so deeply that she almost immediately expires. The doctor is also much affected, though he has never spoken to her, and has not even caught more than one glance of her, till he is called in to attend her and finds her dead. He feels his "prospect and horizon gone," not knowing what is in store for him. The young woman's spirit possesses itself of the body of another young woman, and as this latter happens to be married,and the doctor is quite powerless before the strange fascina- tion thus exercised upon him, it seems likely that serious complica- tions may ensue. At this moment we are reassured by the author's statement, in her preface, that she has "left behind the grosser life of the French schooL" It is still alarming to find the doctor prescribing to himself the curious remedy of eloping with a young woman who is acting as the " possessed " lady's nurse. This devoted attendant, though she does not care for him in the least, and indeed still loves a cousin of his who has jilted her, consents. The "spirit," however, being strongly averse to the proceedings of the French school, locks her up in a cupboard. The possessed throws herself out of window. The spirit departs, after an impressive farewell to the doctor, in which she says to him, " Work earnestly, and hasten to our union in a clearer life." This impresses him as it should. We can only hope that he was not acting inconsistently with the aspiration, when he afterwards married the nurse. The copious quotations from Mr. Mortimer Collins's poems suggest a near relationship between the author and that writer. We must say that this "psychological romance " is but an ill-exchange for the perhaps " too solid flesh " which he was accustomed to present. What he described was, anyhow, life, and not a " comedy of dreams."
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