FICTION.
OUR ADMIRABLE Bk.1.1:Y-t Ma. 1'Am...1'm, in his new tale remains faithful to the aims and methods which won him his first resounding enemas, and gives agreeable proof that he has not exhausted his vein of high-spirited but decorous
• Bound about Bar-te-Due. By Susanne It. Day. London: Skeffington and San. [6& net.] t Our Admirable Betty, By Jeffery Yarnol. London : Sampson Low. [Oa Od. Agitl romance. The scene of his story is laid at Westerham ; the time is early Georgian, the age of Addison and Pope, but the life depicted le hardly that of the group which centred in Sir Roger de Coverley ; there is a wide gulf between the conversation of the heroine and, any, the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the talk of the brocaded bucks who hover round the Admirable Lady Betty Canyon is perhaps modelled more closely on the style of the Beaux than the Georgians. For hero we have Major d'Aroy, a beau sabreur, with an heroic record in the Low Countries, who has oome into a small estate with the intent of leading a quiet life and writing his great history of Fortification. But everything is thrown out of gear byhis next-door neighbour, a reigning toast and an adorable hoyden, living under the nominal chaperonage of a modish aunt, and surrounded by a group of fops, dandies, and bloods. How she managed to keep them off until she was twenty-one in an age of early marriages is a puzzle. But Lady Betty had another difficulty —to provide a -refuge and shelter for her outlawed twin-brother Charles, Lord Medhurst, who had oompromised himself deeply In the '15. When it is added that the twins were remarkably alike, the shrewd reader will easily guess the imbroglios that arise and the agonies endured by the simple Major, who has fallen hopelessly in love with Lady Betty. In her hands he is as wax, but though a flirt and a hoyden she is a young woman of high principle. The seamy side of Georgian high life is skilfully hidden : we only see Its decorative, flamboyant side, brocade and satin, feasting and junketing. True, there is a terrible villain in Mr. Dalroyd, a Mephistophelean dandy who has for gentleman's gentleman an ex- highwayman, whom he bullies outrageously in the relations between these two rascals Mr. Farnol gives us the best characteriza- tion in his book. The other lovers, ourled and essenoed dandies, are sprightly marionettes, but eminently histrionic figures. This is a spirited extravaganza, luscious in sentiment, but Impeccable in morality. It is neither an historioal romance nor a true fantasy, but it has charm, naiveté, and, movement.
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