Where Town and Country Meet. By Mrs. Alfred Baldwin. (Long-
mans.)—This is a singularly well-written story. The plot is well contrived. There is poetical character about the justice which we find worked out in the denouement, and yet though poetical, it is strictly prosaic in its probability. The way in which the false Joyce is made to keep her promise is a very powerful stroke of the tragic kind. But the chief charm of Where Town and Country Meet is in the telling of the tale. Such racy talk from the lips of town-folk and country-folk we have seldom had the privilege of hearing since Mrs. Poyser ceased to entertain us. Mrs. Tipper is comforting her friend by the consideration that many women have worse husbands than she :—" Yours don't munch you, nor keep back as much o' the wages for drink as many do, and when he's in liquor, he takes it respectable-like and sets quiet, and don't look much more of a fool than what he do when he's sober." Excellent, too, is the plain speaking of Mr. Cradock to old Oliver Dark as to the contingencies of old age :—" You're brittle-like, you catch a bit of cold, p'raps, what a younger man 'ud take no notice on, and you're gone in a puff. It's nothing but what you've got to expect at your 'ears, Mr. Dark." When Mr. Cradock, a little elevated by drink, is driving his wife and friend home, and in the excite- ment of his eloquence runs the trap against a milestone, Mrs. Cradock comes out with great force :—" Look 'ee 'ere, Cradock, if you're agoing to preach, it 'ud be a deal safer on the ale-'ouse bench,—that don't go on wheels, and can't run you and your con- gregation agin no milestones." There is a very good description of life in the hop-gardens.
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