Golden Girls. By" Allan Muir. 3 vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)
— The "golden girls" are two sisters, who are left orphans at an early age, and are made the objects of various schemes by interested people
who want a share in their fortune. There is some very amusing comedy made out of this. Sometimes, as might be expected, it verges upon farce, as in the relations between Jerome Dawe, the heiresses' guardian, and his flatterers, Daniel and Beatrice Haddock. The folly and pomposity of the one, and the meanness and falsehood of the others, are not greater than might sometimes be found ; bat then in real life they are never quite so openly displayed. Bat this, after all, is a matter of little moment. The humour is genuine and mirth-provoking, not the less so, perhaps, because it is a little broader than the strict rules of art would allow. Sally Badger, most vigorous of women, whom neither the burden of a do-nothing husband, nor all the schemes of her rivals and enemies, can vanquish, is a really admirable person ; so, in quite another way, is the nagging old major, always talking of his Clubs, and forced at last to confess that he has been almost starving in a garret, in order to give his daughter the advantages of a lady. The scene in which the old man gives up his pretences, and is forgiven by the lady to whom he had been false in his youth, is particularly good. But the finest part of the book beyond compare, a part which shoWs really great power in the author, is that which describes the last hours of Violet, the younger of the two girls. It is written throughout with admirable taste and feeling.
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