The Governess. By Mrs. Alfred Hunt and Violet Hunt. (Chatto
and Windus. Os.)—The abrupt and dramatic ending of this story is certainly not in tone with its quiet beginning, but, as pointed out by Mr. Madox Hueffer in his introduction, it is the work of two writers who belong to widely divergent schools of fiction. The portrait of the Dulverton family is certainly extremely well drawn—a remark which is made by Mr. Madox Hueffer, who is kind enough to provide the critic with a review of the book in his introduction—but it is difficult to agree with Mr. Hueffer's infer- once that novelists of the present day do not produce books written with so much careful detail and so much insight into character. On the contrary, there is a certain school of present-day writers of fiction whose novels are remarkable for just these qualities, though this, of course, does not detract from the value of Mrs. Alfred Hunt's pictures. But for the jerky effect hinted at above owing to the sensational end of the book being out of tone with the quiet beginning, The Governess would be an extremely artistic piece of work, painted in rather a low key of colour.
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