CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Heiress of Haredale. By Lady Virginia Sandars. (F. V. White and Co.) —This novel possesses considerable merit, in spite of certain blemishes in point of literary form. The authoress shows true insight into certain types of human character, and considerable skill in their delineation. The Earl of Haredale, with his excellent heart, capable, nevertheless, of great injustice and unkindness by force merely of the prejudices and narrowness incident to his position and antecedents ; Lord Coniston, a character somewhat after the Rawdon Crawley type ; the wayward and proud Wilhelmina of the earlier part of the story, and the gentler and humbler Wilhelmina taught by the lessons of experience the value of a love she had held too cheap, and the true secret of human happiness ;—these are all very truthful and interesting studies. The minor characters and bye-plot, too, giving the story of a religions scepticism, which must certainly be styled "honest doubt," and of its gradual cure through the influence of a good and high-minded man, deserve careful study. The interest of the plot is fairly well sustained, and the denouement at the end is really powerful.
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