FICTION.
" MR. MANLEY."t
Tars is a novel on an old theme, with a scene in which old-fashioned traditions linger on in surroundings not immune to modern influences, but it is handled with a good deal of freshness and charm. The heroine, Maude Fielding, is an orphan who, after spending a couple of years happily in the family of old friends in London, goes to live with her guardian, an elderly maiden lady, in the country. The house, like its owner, is of somewhat forbidding aspect, but Miss Bolton, under her dour exterior, soon reveals sterling qualities, and all promises well until Maude begins to discover that her guardian has a secret trouble, that a cloud rests over her past, and that she is regarded with suspicion and disfavour by some of her neighbours. As Miss Bolton refrains from enlightening her ward, it is only very gradually that Maude emerges from the atmosphere of suspense into the daylight of knowledge, and the shock is all the greater seeing that her own life has been shielded from painful realities. Here for the first time she is brought face to face with a domestic tragedy, a mystery which has never been cleared up, and in which her own family is involved. It is enough to say that Miss Bolton's brother disappeared many years before in circumstances which pointed almost conclusively to his having taken the life of a friend ; that he reappears under an alias, and is recognized by the brother of his supposed victim. The problem involved in the story is the old one : how far an innocent man is justified in sacrificing himself, when he is in posses- sion of the means of clearing himself from guilt. If we cannot altogether acquiesce in the Quixotry of " Mr. Manley," which exposed his sister to a life of isolation and suspicion, we readily • The Sayings of the Children. Written down by their Mother, Pamela Olenconner. Oxford: B. H. Blackwell. [3e. 6d. net.] t "Mr. Manley." By G. I. Whitham. London : John Lane. [6e. net.]
admit that the author has at least contrived to make it plausible, and to found on it a series of interesting and romantic situations.
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