All for Herself. By Shirley Smith. 3 vole. (Hurst and
Blackett.) —The incidents on which this story is founded strike us as being about as improbable as any that we have seen out of a burlesque. Cecilia, the heroine, contrives to cause such an alienation between her cousin,. Edgar Westbrook, and his father, that the old man leaves all his pro- perty to his widow. Then by accusing him of stealing a diamond ring, which she herself manages to secrete, she poisons his mother's mind against him, and so secures all the fortune for herself. Having actually entered into possession, she is surprised by him in the act of looking at the very ring in question. To stop his month, she consents to marry him. But surely a woman capable of such audacious plotting would have been equally capable of brazening the matter out. ;Did she think that the disinherited cousin could have gone to a Court of Equity with this story of the ring, and gained any redress? Then follows a somewhat singular adventure between a certain Captain Percival and one Helen Calvert. After this, we get on to firmer ground ; the latter part of the story is a decided improvement on the beginning. The fate of Cecilia, the woman who is " all for herself," is told with some power and with- out exaggeration. Between Helen, indeed, and her husband there arises one of those misunderstandings which are so brief in real life, so durable in fiction ; but then, how are three volumes to be filled, unless these fictitious barriers are to be kept up ? We cannot say that this is an agreeable novel, but it has the merit of working out a definite idea. If this idea had been kept in view with more singleness of purpose, and if the reader were not prejudiced against the story by an exordium that
passes all possible belief, All For Herself would have merited more than ordinary praise.
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