The Maskelynes. By Annie Thomas. 2 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)
—We cannot congratulate the writer on a successful effort. The sorrows. of one Get-trade Maskelyne are her theme, but how strangely does she contrive that these sorrows should be brought about ! Gertrude falls in love with her cousin, Sir Edward, who has just returned to his ancestral home. An old suitor, another cousin, but on the mother's, i.e., the, vulgar side, of the family, disappointed by this new affection, manages to poison the young lady's mind. He tells her that the young baronet had brought a mistress to reside at a neighbouring village, and contrives that she should see the woman on whom he fastens this character. This extravagantly improbable story Gertrude Maskelyne, who has been de- scribed a few pages before as "a clever, impressionable child," believes, with a readiness which can only be accounted for by supposing that her mind was saturated with a certain class of novels. She marries the- slanderous cousin out of spite, quarrels with her husband, has a meet- ing with her old lover of the dangerous kind which certain writers love to describe, and finally is set free by a sudden catastrophe. The husband dies of poisoning ! She is suspected and tried, but the trial we are- spared. The author takes credit for her forbearance in this respect,, and we cheerfully allow it. The suggested cause of the husband's death sounds indeed a little unlikely. Ile had been killed by eating poisoned wheat, a more probable end for a rook than for a man. We shall not follow the story any further. There is some vigour of style about all that Mrs. Pander-Cudlip writes, but we cannot go further than this in praise of her last novel.
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