nd to the lightness of the incidents. This setting of
the story makes the book really impressive: the scenery is brought
before the reader not in the way a topographical map is constructed, but
by dexterous touches which show that the anonymous author can rise above
recording the vicissitudes of a more or less conventional courtship. But
a good many writers have ship-wrecked just at that which seems so easy
and is really so hard. All the good scenery in the world will not make a
dull novel entertaining; but when, as is the case here, the story is
interesting, the reader can only be grateful for everything thrown in
over measure. This story is clever, because it describes so well the way
in which a young woman who at the beginning of the tale is engaged to a
young painter, George Ferris, whom she does not really love, learns a
good deal about that passion when she meets the more fascinating Arthur
Livingston on the Nile, and travels for a long time in his company. This
Livingston, too, is not the conventional hero whose success wins the
envious hatred of every man that reads its history: on the contrary, he
is a well-drawn, probable character, who is well informed without being
priggish, and whose sentimentality does not too thickly overlie his more
active qualities. He seems like what he is--a rich young American who
prefers Europe to this country, and who is not spoiled by living abroad.
The whole relation in which he stands to the heroine, Bell Hamlyn--or
Miss Hamlyn, as she is generally called, while her step-mother is almost
always known as Flossy--is entertainingly and naturally told. To be
sure, the veteran reader of novels will have a sense of having come
across some of the incidents several times before, but what will seem
much less familiar are the humor and the amusing satire with which the
foibles of travellers are made fun of. The collarless American, the
artless young Englishman, the light-minded flirt of the same country,
and the more solemn British tourist, are shown up with great cleverness;
and the talk of all the people is natural and amusing, although at times
the solemn parts are not so well done as the lighter and more frivolous
bits of the conversation. The book abounds with hits at social faults of
one kind and another, and shows a perception of the ridiculous which
promises well for the future success of the writer. It is not a great
book, but it is a clever one, which belongs in the same category w