2 JUNE 1888, Page 25

and its wealth, has to make a straggle for existence.

This is the plot of the tale ; and the heroine, Doris Cheyne, one of the five daughters, manages to keep her mother, her sisters, and herself till the wheel of fortune comes round again. Such a story is common enough, and rarely ends as happily as Miss Swan's history of the Cheyne family. In consideration of the final result, the story should have been made more impressive by misfortunes more dis- heartening and more accentuated. And then the principal per- sonage, Doris Cheyne, does not interest us as much as she should.

Even Mrs. Cheyne, unpleasantly as she behaves, and worldly and selfish as she is, is a much more natural type than that which the writer has taken so much trouble to define.