and despatched them on his yacht to apprehend one whom they
vaguely supposed to be "a little girl about twelve." This was the only
time in which I scored over Mr. HARRISON. I was as certain, when I read
thus far, that _Mary Carstairs_ was no child, but a grown-up beauty, as
I am now that I know the facts. Everywhere else the author had me beat.
His capacity for complications seems inexhaustible. I knew that _Varney_
was going to fall in love with _Mary_, but I did not know that he
himself had a double who would cause endless and thrilling confusions;
that _Maginnis_ would become involved in local politics to the extent of
endangering his life; and that even old _Carstairs_, _Mary's_ father,
would--but on second thoughts you had better share my unpreparedness
about him. I should sum up the book as a tale with a "punch" in every
chapter, some of them perhaps below the belt of probability, but all
leaving one, as is the way with punches, breathlessly concerned.

* * * * *

_Monsieur de Rochefort_ (HUTCHINSON) did not even take himself
seriously; why then should I? To subject this airy romance, of Paris in
1770, to a minute criticism would be unnecessarily spoiling a good
thing, and I shall not therefore ask myself whether prisons were so
easily got out of or great statesmen so easily cajoled as Mr. H. DE VERE
STACPOOLE for present purposes assumes. I shall not examine the
historical accuracy of the portraits of the _Duc de Choiseul_ or of the
_Comtesse Dubarry_, nor shall I question the human probability of
villains so inept as _Camus_ or martinets so infallible and ruthless as
_de Sartines_. The most exacting connoisseur of vintage ports will in
his expansive moments admit the merits of a light wine from the wood,
offered him as such in due season; even so the most fastidious
novel-reader may in a holiday mood allow himself to be merely
entertained and diverted by these lighthearted but breathless adventures
in the Court of Louis XV. It is the greatest fun throughout; events are
rapid and the dialogue is crisp; moreover there is from the beginning
the comfortable certainty that, threaten what may, the unhappy end is
impossible. If DE ROCHEFORT had failed to marry JAVOTTE, I think that
Mr. DE VERE STACPOOLE would have incurred the unanimous displeasure of
all his readers, including those who at any other time would have
strongly protested against the marriage of so great a gentleman with so