widow, thanks to
his kind offices), and his failure to bag the hero and _ingenue_
(together with a handful of subsidiary characters) is only a matter of
minutes. There is almost a false note about the last chapter, in which
the Oriental commits suicide before he has completed his grisly task;
but it was obviously impossible for anyone in the book to live happily
ever after so long as he remained alive. Just how Mr. HARRIS BURLAND and
the villainous figment of his lively imagination perform these deeds of
dastard-do is not for me to reveal. The publishers modestly claim that
in the school of WILKIE COLLINS this author has few rivals. As regards
complexity of plot the claim is scarcely substantiated by the volume
before me; but if bloodshed be the food of fiction Mr. BURLAND may slay
on, secure in his pre-eminence.

* * * * *

The _Rev. Frank Farmer_, hero of Mr. RICHARD MARSH'S _The Deacon's
Daughter_ (LONG), was the youthful, good-looking and eloquent
Congregationalist minister of the very local town of Brasted, and the
ladies of his flock adored him. So earnestly indeed did they adore him
that, after he had preached a stirring series of sermons on the evils of
gambling, they decided to subscribe and send him for a holiday to Monte
Carlo. On his return he was to preach another course of sermons, which
"would rouse the national conscience and, with God's blessing, the
conscience of all Europe." Possibly you can guess what happened to him;
I did, and I am not a good guesser. The _Rev. Frank_ had never been out
of England, and he found Monte Carlo inhabited by ladies who made him
blush. He could not understand their bold ways, so different from the
manner of the Brasted maidens. One of them laid especial siege to him
and assured him that he had "_la veine_." At first I am inclined to
believe that he thought she was talking of something varicose, but when
he understood what she meant he was at her mercy. In short he tried his
luck, to the dismay of his conscience but with prodigious benefit to his
pocket. His return to Brasted is described with excellent irony.

* * * * *

Mr. WILL IRWIN'S war-book naturally divides itself into two parts, since
he was lucky enough to get near the Front both about Verdun during the
great attack, and with the Alpini fighting on "the roof of Armageddon."
To these brave and picturesque friends of ours he dedicates his study,
_Th