29 NOVEMBER 1902, Page 23

Robin Brilliant. By Mrs. Dudeney. (Hodder and Stoughton. 6s.)—Robin Brilliant

is a story which those who begin will read through, and will lay down feeling that they have been both interested, and depressed. Robin is the heroine. She owns a .house and estate called Great Fanne. Close by at Lesser Fanne there lives a young squire. The neighbourhood expects that these two should marry, but they do not. They are admirably suited to one another, and they are in love. There is, however, a third person to be reckoned with in the shape of a pretty but inferior little girl of a scheming disposition. She has been brought up in France by her mother, who has kept a Paris boarding; house, and who on coming into an unexpected fortune retiree to the English village in which she passed her youth. How the daughter struggles to take away Robin's lover, how Robin is too proud to stretch out a hand to keep him and he is too weak to stick to her without help, is well told. The book displays' certain kind of sad power.