A Race for a Wife. A Novel
By , Author of “ Breezie Langton.” D. Appleton & Co.
THE last Denison of Glinn is on his last legs, and the money-lender can foreclose upon him whenever he likes. The Denison has a lovely daughter, Maud; the money-lender has an unlovely son, Sam. “ Let them marry,” says Shylock, “ and I call the score settled.” Pyrotechnics on the part of Mr. Denison, in whom all the pride of his race flames up; tears on the part of Maud; rage and grief on the part of Grenville Rose, her cousin, who loves her ; pitilessness on the party of the moneylenders. Maud and Sam engaged ; old feudal deed fished up by Rose, which gives Denison the power to stop Sam from running his famous horse Coriander at the Derby; Rose runs him, and bets heavily upon him ; Providence smiles upon the bet, and the lover wins money enough to marry Maud and be happy ever after.
The moral of this charming story is that money-lenders must not think of marrying above them. On the whole, the book is surprisingly decent; but it strikes us as rather odd that the blessing of Heaven is made to descend upon gambling. Yet we do not complain ; matters might have been much worse; for we suspect from the slanginess of the style that Hawley Smart is a woman ; and we all know how Englishwomen write nowadays, and have reason to be glad when they are merely vapid, silly, and inconsequent, as Hawley Smart is.