'Twixt Cup and Lip. By Mary - Lovett - Cameron. 3-vein (S. Tinsley.) — There
is nothing very good or very blameworthy in this novel. Miss Cameron, indeed, keeps her heroine on the brink of bigamy for a consider- able time, and once seems almost to have made up her mind to let her go. over. For doubtless if the proposed marriage had taken place, there would have been bigamy. The young lady thinks that she is free, because the husband whom she has ceased to lovewas a Roman Catholic, and the marriage was not celebrated according to both rites. But this was quite a delusion on her part, and when the author talks vaguely of certain legal formalities omitted which made it invalid, she must be re- minded that where there is bona fides in the contracting parties, the law will pass over almost any informalities, in, Its righteous anxiety to uphold the validity of a marriage. But thinga came out all right. The intended second husband is dismissed with proper promptitude and firmness, and does his duty by getting himself drowned. The first husband also does-all that he should, and so do his relatives, especially an elder brother who obligingly dies, and makes him the heir of the ances- tral possessions. So the heroine, it will be seen, fares better than she deserves. On the other band, there is a most edifying and pathetic account of the life and death of her cousin Edith. It may seem unjust to laugh at what is a well-meant and harmless book, yet these vapid and tedious novels really ought to be discouraged. They make one fancy at least that one could relish even unwholesome stimulants.
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