A Dangerous Secret. By Annie Thomas. Two volumes. (Sampson Low,
Son, and Marston.)—In her preface ?ass Thomas defends herself from the charge of writing too fast by explaining that the success of "Denis Donne" has caused a demand for her novels, and that the publishers are resuscitating old "new works." The second of these two volumes contains two tales which have previously appeared in London Society. "A Dangerous Secret," however, appears for the first time, and we congratulate the writer on one great improvement. Her sympathies seem to be almost always on the side of the virtuous characters. Informer novels she seemed to us to have every qualification for fiction, but all marred by a sort of admiration for fastness. In this story that weak- ness is nearly gone. It just lingers in the sort of contemptuous dislike the authoress feels for Helen Rivers, who is merely a common-place domestic girl, and is therefore sly." Miss Thomas 'should throw this notion off altogether. Bad people are unpleasant, and so far as they are pleasant it is by reason of the good qualities they have. If respect- able people are unpleasant it is because of their faults. Every artist should make this apparent to the dullest reader.
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