28 NOVEMBER 1885, Page 20

The Riser-Waif ; or, The Luck of Godfrey's Wharf. By

Constance

Cross. (J. F. Shaw and Co.)—Here the heroine is a girl picked up in the river, a variation from the customary casting on shore by a storm from a shipwreck. Her fortunes are told with some power, and with a most excellent purpose. She brings the good of better and kinder thoughts and acts to the poor people among whom she comes. But why the sad ending ? Sad endings we always object to in books of this kind ; and the particular act which brings about this one seems to us not to lie upon the plane of ordinary human action.