Betty's Husband. (Grant Richards. es.)—The conduct of "Betty's husband" is
anything but edifying before he is married to Betty. It is not merely immoral, but so extraordinarily mean that one would think nobody with the most rudimentary ideas of decent behaviour could have indulged in it. In brief, Austin Bickerdyke, the gentleman in question, marries Betty, and gets her to settle £100,000 upon him for the purpose of giving £30,000 to his quondam mistress. Betty discovers the whole story before the wedding, but on an old woman in a cottage saying to her that "women, if they're wise, why, they just live for them" (men), Betty marries her lover quand mime. The machinations of the female villain are defeated in the end, and Mr. and Mrs. Austin are left to a happy married life, which seemed a most immoral end to such a beginning. The book is readably written, though it is difficult to pretend to take any interest in the characters.
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