My Lady at Last. By M. T. Taunton. 1 vol.
(Sirnpkin, Marshall, and Co.)—An introductory note to this novel states that "the main facts of the story have occurred in [?] the personal knowledge of the author," and though, according to the naturalists on either side of the Channel, this is the one thing needful for real novel-writing, the result is not altogether favourable to the shorthand-report-and- auctioneer-catalogue school of novelists. It is not that Miss Taunton is guilty of many artistic misdemeanours, but that she is un- happily deficient in positive merit. "Write down what you have seen, record facts, photograph the actual, give us reality!" cry the Zolaists ; and, this is what we get, though we do not for a moment intend to convey that Miss Taunton is a dis- ciple of that successful man. Clearly, something more than records or photography is necessary, unless we can be guaranteed a regular supply of Flauberts and De Gloncourts, who, after all, have some literary power and some notion of selection. My Lady at Last is the story of a gentleman who had throe daughters, who were allowed to grow up wild, till he, being a widower, marries a second time, and the girls are sent to school by their stepmother. Trifonia Ferriors, the oldest girl, marries a dancing-master, who, after the manner of his kind, treats her brutally, and makes her perform in strange ballots, so that one night her father sees her, has a fit, and dies,—a clear demonstration of the danger of marrying low people. A wicked woman personates the first Mrs. Ferriers, and Clara, the the second girl, without saying a word to any one, takes up her abode with her supposed mother, and works at shirt-making, but at last finds out that she has been deceived, and marries her faithful though humble friend James Davenport, who has, happily, made a fortune in Australia, and got knighted for capturing a non-existent Maori chief. One incident taken from life is a description ol a cross- country chase of a recalcitrant bridegroom, who is ran down in fine style, and a ieot-note takes away all the interest. Miss Taunton's tone is lady-like, though her ideas are rather narrow ; she describes the childhood and school-life of the girls successfully, and if she would learn to write without self-consciousness and with a slight
infusion of imagination, she might give us novels as good as the average.
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