Mrs. Juliet. By Mrs. Alfred W. Hunt. 3 vols. (Chatto
and Windus.)—Though Mrs. Alfred Hunt's latest novel is from first to last a record of misfortunes and misadventures, it is a lively rather than a depressing book, for we have a pleasing assurance that the long lane of Mrs. Juliet's troubles will assuredly have a turning before the end of the third volume is reached, and the troubles themselves are related with a vivacity which goes far to relieve their dismalness. The moral of the book seems to be the absurdity of making unnecessary secrets. If Juliet Cradock had revealed her secret marriage to Aylesbury, she would not have been one whit worse off than she was, and she would have been spared the-annoyance—certainly a most unusual one—of being twice suspected, in both cases quite unjustly, of attempting murder by poison ; only it must be admitted that in that case there would have been no story to tell, which would have been inconvenient, at any rate for Mrs. Alfred Hunt. As it is, the story is a very good one, with plenty of excitement in the matter of plot, and at least one admirably drawn character, Mrs. Cradock, the widow of the wealthy pill inventor, who, being like Mrs. Boffin, "a high-flyer at fashion," takes a house in Berkeley Square, calls herself Mrs. Slingsby-Caradoe, and sets up for being a patron of art. This lady is amusing, and there is a good deal of cleverness in the Pierrepoint episode, in the third volume, where Mrs. Hunt has utilised the Tiehborne imposture in an original way. Airs. Jukiet is a decidedly readable story.
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