the shrewd analysis held me, and that if my guess as to the sex of
the writer be sound it is noteworthy that more pains and skill are
bestowed upon the characters of the men than of the two girls, who are
some thing shadowy--charming unfinished sketches. There is a vigour
and an effect of personality in the writing that put this novel above
the large class of the merely competent.

* * * * *

Odd what a vogue has lately developed for what I might call the
ultra-domestic school of fiction. Here is another example, _Married
Life_ (CASSELL), in which Miss MAY EDGINTON, following the mode,
unites her hero and heroine at the beginning and leaves them to
flounder for our edification amid the trials of double blessedness.
I am sorry to say it, but her great solution for the eternal problem
of How to be Happy though Married appears to be the possession of a
sufficient bank-balance to prevent the chain from galling. In other
words, not to be too much married. All this love-in-a-cottage talk has
clearly no allurement for Miss EDGINTON. With her, the protagonists,
_Osborne_ and his young wife, are no sooner wed than their troubles
begin--troubles of the domestic budget, of cooking and stove lighting
and the rest. (By the way, for all its carefully British topography,
I strongly suspect the whole story of an exotic origin, chiefly from
certain odd-sounding words that seem to have slipped in here and
there. Does our island womanhood really talk of a _matinée_, in the
sense of an article of attire? If so, this is the first I hear of
it). To return to the _Kerr_ household. In the midst of their bothers
_Osborne_ is given a post as traveller in motor-cars at a big salary.
So off he goes, while _Marie_, like the other little pig of the poem,
stays at home, and enjoys herself hugely. When he returns she hardly