His Queen. By Alice Fisher. (Henry S. King and Co.)—"
The blindless bay-window faces the south-west, and on the purple velvet sofa where she lies luxuriating in its warmth the low sun darts down in strength. A great green glass vase stands beside her ; at the bottom sulk the crabs ; hither and thither dart the little fishes ; and bare to the elbow her white arms gleam, and jewelled fingers flash in the water, as with all a true woman's tyranny, she teases and caresses her prisoners. Her white rosy-ribboned peignoir floats as loosely round her as the bronze-gold hair her maid strives in vain to gather in with both hands." &c. We seem to hear Kato Nickleby, reading to Mrs. Wittittorly about B'efillaire, "the young, the slim, the low-voiced," and the footmen in has de soie, and the lady who was excited by the fine-arts and the nobility,—" especially by the nobility," murmuring gently, "delicious-7 so soft!" as we turn page after page of such writing as the above extract, in the effort to dis- entangle the story of His Queen. An ingenuous young man, who has just been praying in a wood, and is the long-absent cousin of the superb party who lies on the purple-velvet sofa, teasing crabs and bullying her maid, arrives to visit her ; she receives him in her boudoir, maid, hair-dressing, and all, and after he is well into the room, "she gathers the whole length of her from the sofa, and stands up, five-feet- seven, duly told." Then Richard Fanshawe "knows that eyes are looking into his, as they would draw through him each secret thing of heart and brain," and no one can be surprised that his cousin becomes his queen, and ultimately his murderess. The plot of the story has some ingenuity, though no probability, and would have had interest, if the writing hed been less intolerably affected and over-coloured ; but narrated in such a style, no combination of incidents could please.
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