Overmatched. By the Author of "Six Months Hence." 3 vols.
(F. W..7. Baker.)—This is a clever, well-written story. An elder son is disinherited and robbed of the property which the late repentance of his father would have given to him, by the wickedness of the younger brother's wife. The tale of how things are brought right, how the promise is kept which the injured man has exacted from his son that he will never consent to enjoy the ancestral estate, except in his own right—for it has come into the hands of an heiress, the younger brother's daughter, —all this is told with excellent effect. It might be said that the scenes be- tween the lawyer and Pauline, the wicked sister-in-law, are somewhat sensational. Lawyers seldom develope into villains of so very melo- dramatic a kind as did Mr. Witherly, and the Nemesis which overtakes them and their accomplices is, for the most part, of a more common- place kind than the startling catastrophe on the cliffs of Llandudno. Nor is it quite easy to understand the financial side of this part of the story. But these are criticisms on which there is no need to insist, when the effect of the whole tale is distinctly good. Among other special excellences in the book, we must notice the description of the rescue from the wreck and of the life in the Azores, and the character of Eldon Bligb, the barrister. Overmatched has faults, but it is quite worth reading.
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