Annie, "An Excellent Person." By E. S. Maine. (Smith and
Elder.)— No one who begins this story will fail, we venture to say, to read it to the end ; and few, at least of those who can be moved by "fictitious. woe," will get so far with dry eyes or without " a lump in the throat.' In fact, it is a very well-written, pathetic tale, with its male characters marked with unusual distinctness and force. But the beautiful " Ellie ". is too mean and base a little creature to be quite artistic. It is impos- sible, if not in life, at least in the typical life of a book, that a girl should scheme and lie so audaciously. And we are getting, we must confess, a little weary of this particular variation of the love story. The novelists are holding up beautiful younger sisters to hatred and contempt. We never find a heroine furnished with one of these dangerous relatives, but we begin to tremble for her fate. She will either be supplanted by the young rival, or cast off a faithful lover in some fit of mad jealousy, or, it may be, in heroic self-sacrifice hand over the half-unwilling man to. the disconsolate one whose secret passion she has discovered. This is an excellent tale, and Hugh, the unstable lover, is an excellent study.
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