In a Rash Moment. By Jessie McLaren. 2 vols. (Sampson
Low and Co.)—This is a clever and sprightly story, in the biographical form, the latter part of which we like much—except the finish—and the first part of which is much spoiled by a slangy fastness. It is not pleasant to hear of the heroine praying "on bonded knee for a rich husband," or of all the flirtations she has carried on under the "governor's aristocratic Roman nose," or, when her father dies, of its being "all she can do to suppress a giggle " at "the idea of him performing on a harp" and "hymning away all day long ;" but it is only fair to say that when age and sorrow have sobered her, she speaks more kindly and respectfully of the father she had so disliked and ridiculed. The plot is not a very natural ono. The heroine falls in love with her young guardian, and in a rash moment believes the story of an unprincipled young woman who claims him as her husband. Then, in another rash moment, she accepts her lover's friend, for the sake of a home ; for many years they liven matter-of-fact life, each imagining that the other only feels for him or her only a cold and business-like regard. A dangerous illness, which attacks the husband during a journey in the Black Forest, reveals his passionate love, and rouses a similar feeling in the wife ; but this is brought about in a very melodramatic way ; by an interview between the old lover and the husband at the bed-side of the wife, who is supposed to be dead, but can hear without being able to speak. The fear of being buried, however, gives her strength to make her existence understood. Then comes a very happy time, nearly to the end of the story, described with much real and earnest feeling ; but, alas ! the authoress thinks it necessary to kill the husband while the wife is still young and beautiful, so that she may bring her and her first lover together; which accordingly she does, first in the lift of a New York hotel, whore the recognition is only on one side; next, in a church ; and finally, in a dentist's waiting-room, where the lady gets up courage to accost the long-lost lover. Miss McLaren should have married Horace to some second divinity, and left the husband and wife to enjoy the deep love, the sketch of the growth of which is the really good and attractive element in the book. But through all its parts— failures and successes—In a Rash Moment is spirited, lively, and readable.
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