what was it?' Thus her mind would go to work; then suddenly the sharpness of remembrance would lay hold of her nerves, and a little inarticulate cry would escape her; her hands would go up to hide her face, and a shiver, not in her limbs, but in her body, would shake and sicken her." Presently Dark Essex is shown into the room, and presently Gallia tells him that she loves him. The chapter is restrained, the chapter is dignified, the chapter is convincing, the chapter is moving;—or, rather, the chapters (for the scene is broken into two chapters, and so to break it was a prudent measure; little conventional breaks like this doing wonders to relieve the tension of the reader's emotion). It must have been difficult enough, in this crisis of the story, to make Gallia herself move and speak convincingly; it must have been a hundred times more difficult to contrive the action and the speeches of the man,—the man who found himself in so unprecedented a situation!
Gallia is a remarkable book, and Gallia is a remarkable young lady. I have no prejudices in favour of the New Woman; I proclaim myself quite brazenly an Old Male. But I respect Gallia, I admire her, I like her, and I am heartily sorry she made the mistake of marrying Gurdon. It was a mistake, I am persuaded, though an inevitable mistake. But I shall owe a grudge to Miss Ménie Muriel Dowie if she doesn't by-and-by write another volume about Gallia, and let me know exactly, in detail, how her mistaken, inevitable marriage turned out. I shall look for a volume entitled Lady Gurdon—for Mark will of course by this time have been created a baronet, at the lowest. And, meanwhile, I will ask competitors for my prize to be extremely careful and exhaustive in their criticisms of Gallia.
Two more books I will ask the same young gentlemen and ladies to consider, and then I will let them off. One is Mr.
