NOVELS.—The Lady Resident. By Hamilton Page. 3 vols. (Mac- millan.)—This
is undoubtedly "a novel of the day," seeing that it is a story about the higher education of women. Whether "Mr. Hamilton Page" (a pseudonym, certainly veiling, we should say, female authorship) means to bless or to curse, is not at first sight quite evident. The "lady resident" is only too admirable, the stu- dents as industrious, as clever, and as well behaved as could be de- sired ; but the managing ladies are the incarnations of meanness and jealousy. Probably the writer has no definite object in view, except to give to the world her experiences and observations. Circumstances seem to have given her an opportunity of seeing the inner working of a "ladies' college," and it is not impossible that the personhges of the story, notwithstanding the evident endeavour to throw readers off the scent (for the " city in the west " is manifestly imaginary), will be recognised. However this may be, the book is very cleverly written, and will be found very readable. Nothing in it is better than the sketch of the Positivist Professor, unless it be that very charming and plain-spoken lady, Mrs. Brownlow, who conceals under her infantile smile a shrewd and practical intelligence. As for the heroine of the story, Bettie Ravenshaw, she is too wonderful a creature. Such all-subduing beauties will have to be excluded from the benefits of the higher education by special enactment, until at least the colleges can get on without male assistance, and can be located where Mr. Tennyson's Princess located her institution. It would not be fair to omit the capital picture of Mrs. Ravenshaw, a lady quite remote from all the newer thought of the day, a picture so well done as to be the best possible proof of the writer's versa- tility. These three volumes are full of clever things, of which we must give one specimen. " These Positivists reproduce the old savage method A Positivist goes about after a woman with an in- tellectual cudgel, and when be has beaten her senseless he expects her to consent to marry him."—The Scarsdale Peerage. By Frederic Talbot. 3 vols. (John and Robert Maxwell.)—We feel at once, when we begin this novel, that we are taken out of the round of common life. Feeling this, and giving up the troublesome task of considering whether this or that incident or conjunction of incidents is probable, we really enjoy the story. It moves on briskly. There are sufficiently tantalising mysteries, and sufficiently harrowing sus- penises. Everything is terribly near going quite wrong, and every- thing does go all right. Then the tragic is relieved by a due admix- ture of the comic. Mr. Cowsleaf, the genealogist, who is recalled occasionally from the past by the present necessity of having to contend with tax-gatherers and creditors, is a humorous sketch. The Scarsdale Peerage is a creditably constructed and well-written story of the romantic kind, very much to be preferred to the doubtful morals and sickly sentiment of much that we are condemned to read.—Lizzie of the Mill. From the German of W. Heimburg, by Christina Tyrrell. 2 vole. (Bentley.)—The interest of the story turns on the social inequalities which are so prominent in German life. There has sprung up a deep attachment between an impoverished noble and the daughter of a wealthy plebeian. Difficulties are interposed, intensified by a painful memory of a similar complication which had taken place in an earlier generation of the two houses. This makes an interesting tale, and the characters of the actors are sketched with vigour, though, indeed, the hero, as we suppose he must be called, "Army Derenberg," is not by any means deserving of his good-fortune.- The Story of a Demoiselle. By the Author of " A French Heiress." (Marcus Ward.)—The clever and tasteful author of this story finds an ever fresh subject for her pen in the conflict or contrast of English and French ways of arranging a marriage. A young Englishman, or, it may be, a young Frenchman, who has learnt to admire English ways of thinking in these matters, sets himself in opposition to the national customs. Hence tears and smiles. The writer holds the balance very fairly between the two methods of arranging the future lives of the young, though she inclines it, it is evident, to her own nation ; for the "demoiselle " who is loved in English fashion and married in the French, though she does not miss happiness, enjoys it in but a sober fashion. " I wished and still wish that my gentle Clotilda de Mornay had been an English girl," is her summing-up. The hero is not left comfortless, but consoled with a younger sister, an arrangement which satisfies, if not the exact requirements of art, yet the kindly feeling of author and reader. This is a very pleasing and well-written story.—The Story of Stella Peel. By Harriet Childe Pemberton. (Literary Production Committee.)—Stella Peel is a girl who escapes from the prospect of uncongenial employment, either in service or in teaching, to try her fortune on the stage. A chance, of which it need only be said that it is not impossible, throws her into the way of a benevolent old man, who is able to help her exactly in the best possible way. She becomes a reciter, and achieves a considerable
reputation ; but she makes a mistake in the character of the man whom she loves, and her life is clouded with disappointment. All this is brought out by Miss Pemberton in an interesting and well- written story, marked by some real power in the drawing of character. Stella is no ordinary woman ; nor is she made to differ from others only by the presence of remarkable histrionic powers. In the picture that we have of her aims and temper, in her general nobility of pur- pose, and in her failure to keep a steady hold on the principle of absolute integrity and truth, we recognise a study of genuine subtlety
and insight.—Two Rose Trees. By Mrs. Minnie Douglas. (Griffith and Farran.)—This is a simple story of domestic life, as it should be,
and as we suppose it is quite right that young people should have
it pictured to them,—everything turning out as it should tarn out in the end. The mysteriously missing document is recovered, Mrs.
Norton gets her own again, the dishonest and purse-proud parvenus
are discomfited, the injured twin recovers the use of her limbs in the effort to save her sister from the falling chandelier, just as Crcesus's
dumb son got his speech by crying out to the soldier who was about to kill his father,—and all that is left to wish for is that the invalid may make up the half-inch of growth by which she has fallen short of her twin.
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