Old Dacre's Darling, By Annie Thomas (Mrs. Pender Cudlip). 3
vols. (F. V. White and Co.)—Mrs. Pender Cudlip is no mean proficient in the art of writing repulsive novels ; but here she has surpassed herself. Here is a brief sketch of the plot. The heroine entraps a young man into an engagement, marries the friend who goes to help him out of the entanglement, comes down as a widow to her father-in-law's house, makes fools of all the men in the place, and especially the old squire, her dead husband's uncle, whom she marries, or makes a show of marrying. It is in describing the doating fondness of this old wretch that the writer reaches the climax of her powers. The chronology of the tale is incomprehensible. Lady Larington is fifty in Volume I., and seventy in Volume III.; but the other characters do not appear to have grown old quite so fast. If they did, the wicked heroine must have been married at about twelve.
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