FICTION.
LOVE LAUGHS LAST.*
THE lady who writes so pleasantly under the pen-name of "S. G. Tallentyre" generally finds her inspiration in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The period here chosen is, speaking roughly, that described by Jane Austen, and, like her great fore- runner, she leaves the Napoleonic War out of her account. Lore Laughs Last—the contents are much easier to read than tho title to pronounce—is a family chronicle which opens with an elopement, but is conducted throughout without violence or extravagance. Camilla Forrest, the delicate, gentle wife of a one-armed sea-captain, was disowned by her father, a selfish dilettante, and left badly off on her husband's death. But she had no lack of devoted friends ; an uncle befriended her only son, paid the premium which enabled him to enter the Merchant Marine, and ultimately bequeathed a house and small fortune to the boy. David King, a mellowed version of his father, makes good at sea, but his arduous experiences on ship- board are only described in outline. "S. G. Tallentyre " does not enter into competition with Marryat or Melville or Conrad. The story is concerned with David's life on land, his devotion to his mother, and his quest of a wife. On the principle of extremes meeting, he is attracted by the elegant and intellectual Theodora Heywood, and is already engaged to her when he meets his true affinity, the frank, genial, and sensible Nancy Legard. The problem is the elimination of the tiresome Theodora, and it is perhaps the weakness of the book that we never have any serious misgivings as to the result. David had powerful allies in Nancy herself, and her shrewd and forthright aunt. Delays and deaths postponed the marriage until Theodora herself gave David his conge, to his immense relief. But though the • L2re Laughs Last. By S. G. Tallentyrc. Edinburgh and London: Black- wood. Ice. ne5.1
development of the plot is devoid of harrowing situations, there is plenty of sound characterization, and abundant evidence of a careful study of the period. And if it might be objected that the women are in the main more independent and self-reliant than might be gathered from contemporary fiction, none of them is comparable in courage, learning, eccentricity, or extravagance with the historic personages of the time—Hannah More or Eliza- beth Fry, Lady Hester Stanhope or Lady Caroline Lamb.
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