Vanitas. By "Vernon Lee." (W. Heinemann.)—A prefatory letter that is
quite admirable in tone and style, introduces the reader to three very effective stories, all the more effective for the moderation with which they are written. The motive of all is the same,—the wastefulness, and the misery, not always dis- cerned by its subjects, but not the less real for that, of a frivolous life. The first," Lady Tat," will, we imagine, be most liked. The delicate humour in it—all have a touch of this quality—is of a most cheerful kind. The experiences of Jervase Marion, an American novelist of the " no plot, all character " school, are excellently described. "A Worldly Woman" is a more subtly conceived study, and, on the whole, we are inclined to think, the finest effort of the three. " Vernon Lee," however, does not make the figure of Miss Val Flodden quite as clear to her readers as she does that of Leonard Greenleaf. The "Legend of Madame Krasinska " is the most tragic of the three.
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