Paul Wynter's Sacrifice. By Mrs. Daffus Hardy. 3 vole. (Hurst
and Blackett.)—It is difficult for any writer of fiction, especially difficult, we are inclined to think, for a woman, to spare and be moderate when she has got her hand, so to speak, on the brush with black paint in it. Joel Craig, the villain, is accordingly the weak point, if any- thing so strongly drawn can be called weak, in Mrs. Hardy's story. It is an error, to begin with, that we know him at once ; the author has ne patience with the rascal, and will not have her readers ignorant for a moment of his true character, and the error afterwards is that the drawing has no shading in it ; once or twice, indeed, the man's face is allowed to soften for a moment, when he is talking with the girl whom he loves, or thinks that he loves. But there is nothing more to relieve a wickedness of a most tragical kind, of a kind, too, that, as we have to repeat again and again, is not a natural product of our state of civilize - tion, which brings forth all sorts of wickedness, but not the precise form of a deliberately plotted life-long vengeance. When we have said this, and also remarked that Lucy Natford seems to be turned in the course of the tale into a character for which she was not at first intended, and that her step-mother is a caricature, we have finished our fault-finding. Paul himself is a fine conception, somewhat idealized perhaps, but rather for want of details in the drawing than for any exaggeration in the out- lines. The other characters are as good as we want ; the tale is well managed, and does not flag in interest ; not unfrequently the style rises into pathos, and even eloquence. Altogether, we can recommend it without fear to our readers.
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