FICTION.
MARMADUKE.* THERE are certain hooks which, but for the evidence of the title. page, afford little clue to the identity of the author, and Monomial e is one of them. This is not to say that it is unworthy of the talents of Mrs. Steel, but that it exhibits them in a new light. Her most characteristic work is associated with India, but here the scene is laid in Scotland and the Crimea. For the rest, it is a robustly melo- dramatic atory of the " forties " and "fifties." Marmaduke, after whom the story is named, is the second eon of a wicked old Scots peer, a mixture of Blucbcard and " Old Q," dissolute, cynical, and violent, who has disposed of three wives, and contemplates marriage with a fourth, a lady of the ballot. Marmaduke is no hero ; he is only the best of a very bad bunch, a handsome, engaging young soldier, flamboyant in manner, fickle in his attachments, and afflicted with a chronic scarcity of each. The heroic r6le is reserved for Marrion Paul, granddaughter of Lord Drummuir's hereditary and bibulous piper, and daughter of a Russian valet, who dis- appeared mysteriously after his wife's death. Marrion is a young woman of force and character ; her only weakness is her love for Marmaduke, who recognizes her as his good genius, but is reluctant to reward her as she deserves. She rescues him from the lures of the dancer, and in gratitude for this and other services he marries her privately. The marriage, however, is never disclosed, and when the curtain is raised seven years later, her child having died in the interval, we find her resolutely determined to sacrifice herself by destroying her marriage-lines so as to enable Marmaduko to wed in his own rank of life. An eligible damsel is forthcoming, but war breaks out, Marmaduke goes off to the Crimea, Marrion follows him, and after a brief and happy reunion he dies of cholera. How leer self-denial was rewarded in spite of herself by the validation of leer marriage, and the discovery that the Russian valet was a Russian Prince in disguise, we must leave our readers to find out for themselves. The story is not only Victorian in its setting, but its treatment recalls at times the exuberant sentiment of Smedley and the author of Guy Livingstone. And if one should object that Marrion's extraordinary self-sacrifice is difficult to reconcile with her strong character and force of will, the answer may be that it is only in keeping with the view of womanly self-surrender in pre- Feminist days,
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