Bee in Earnest. By John Barnett. (Smith, Elder, and Co.
63.)—Much the most attractive personage in this novel is the father of Eve Cornell, the heroine. For quite half the book poor Mr. Cornell suffers from his work being ineffective and his talent unrecognised. He is a vague, untidy, and unpractical old gentleman, and it is clever of the author to have so managed that, in spite of all deficiencies, his should yet be the most effective figure in the story. Eve herself contracts a marriage with a worthy but exceedingly dull young Member of Parliament with a view to easing her father's financial worries and leaving him free to work. The marriage, however, from Mr. Cornell's point of view, is a great failure, and he finds rife in a conventional country house quite destructive of his powers of writing. The novel is interesting, not by reason of the events depicted, which are by no means of a startling or extraordinary kind, but through the studies of character. The hero, Gregory Arbuthnot, Eve's commonplace young husband, is particularly well drawn, and it is impossible to avoid sympathising with his wife in her irritation at his imperfect sense of humour. In the end the story finishes happily, though such an ill-matched pair as Eve and Gregory have a good many obstacles of temper and temperament to overcome before they can settle down to married happiness.
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