reader's disappointment is great when it degenerates into an ordinary
sensation novel. Perhaps the fact that the first scene is the death-bed of Barbara's peasant lover, whom she jilted for a captain of horse, might have warned one ; but it is written in good feeling and good taste. The sketch, too, of Miss Morton, the captain's aunt and Barbara's mistress, is very quaint and natural. The selfish, good- natured, strong-minded, old lady, when her protegee returns from her lover's death-bed, proceeds to question her, "Did you ever see any one die before ?"—" No, Ma'am."—" Well now," putting her head on one side like an inquisitive bird, "on the whole, how has it affected you ?" But the promise of the opening is soon belied. An elopement, a mock marriage, desertion, revenge, passionate love, one murder plotted and another executed, follow each other in quick succession, and each incident is more wildly improbable than the last. Not long ago, if one took up a lady's novel, one would generally reckon on a well-constructed story, dealing with domestic incidents of which the interest was real, even if a little exaggerated ; but since Miss Braddon has made crime fashionable, the gentle writers will handle subjects they don't under- stand, cannot touch without making a thousand blunders, and where their delicate perception of the motives which prompt the trifling actions of every-day domestic life is absolutely useless to them.
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