or ten shillings. That was the kind of expert _Hugh_ was. When
he had dug up the picture he exhibited it in a private gallery, where
"each day an eager crowd freely paid an entrance-fee of half-a-guinea."
How, when he could achieve that kind of luck, could he be expected to
take more than a languid interest in a tale where the most impossible
people behave most impossibly; where, for example, a missing peer posts
a letter to his wife at the back of a picture-frame for no earthly
reason; where the villain, younger brother of the long-lost, comes into
the heroine's drawing-room and says, "You must allow me to introduce
myself. I am Frederick Ackland, Earl of Sternholt"? We were only
beginning the second chapter, but my wonder is that a fellow like
_Hugh_, who was within hearing, didn't throw up his part at once. He
would have had my sympathy.

* * * * *

The public is quite content to have any amount of trite philosophy
passed off upon it as new goods by the author who has a gift for dialect
and uses an American negro as mouthpiece. Miss DOROTHY DIX employs a
black laundress of the name of _Mirandy_ (SAMPSON LOW) for philosopher;
and cheerfully persisting with the "yessum's," the "wid's," the "dat's"
and the "becaze's," tells us with incessant humour many things we all
knew before about husbands, their little idiosyncracies and weaknesses
and the methods by which they may be best caught and trained for their
purpose in life. Now and then _Mirandy_ gets away from matters
matrimonial, and it is upon these too rare occasions that she is at her
best. I was particularly moved by her views on the just rights of the
invalid, summed up in the urgent demand that those on the sick-bed
should (omitting the lingo) "be allowed to enjoy being ill in their own
way, without being persecuted by their friends and their friends'
doctors, pet remedies and religions." On the whole, I may quite safely
recommend these two hundred and fifty pleasantly written and
delightfully printed pages to readers who like to muse quietly on the
elementary principles of love and life without risking the surprise of
startling or revolutionary lines of thought. There is nothing peculiarly
good or bad in the many comic illustrations by Mr. E. W. KEMBLE.

* * * * *

_Mr. Punch_ regrets that in his last week's notice of MARIE VAN VORST'S
delightful romance, _His Love Story_, he spoiled her good Dutch