these splendours she provides with an accompaniment of subtle, profound comment. In this manner the description of Rome, the delineation of Neapolitan scenery, and that of the tragic beauty of Venice, present themselves naturally, one after the other. It is in Rome that Corinne's great passion comes into being; so Rome provides the scenery for the first act of this love story; its solemn grandeur and wide horizon harmonise with these profound emotions and serious thoughts. In Naples her love rises to its highest lyrical expression; here the volcano and the smiling splendour of the bay are her background, and music upon the sea accompanies her passionately sorrowful improvisation on the subject of woman's love and woman's destiny. In Venice, where one is so perpetually forced to reflect on the decay and annihilation of beauty, Oswald leaves Corinne for ever. The news that his regiment is ordered to India recalls him to England. He considers himself betrothed to Corinne, and hastens to find her stepmother and secure the restoration of the fugitive to her family rights. But at Lady Edgermond's he meets Corinne's half-sister, Lucile, and her modest, womanly loveliness by slow degrees obliterates the impression made by the elder sister, whose brilliant gifts do not seem so alluring from a distance, and whose independent, bold appearance in the full sunshine of public life does not augur well for wedded happiness in a country where the subdued light of home (with which Lucile's subdued character is in admirable keeping) is the only one in which a woman can show herself with advantage. Marriage with Corinne would be a challenge to society; and he feels that it would, consequently, be a slight to his father's memory. Marriage with Lucile, on the other hand, would be unanimously approved of by society. In Corinne, he would wed the foreign, the far off, that which would be irreconcilable in the long run with the spirit of his country; in Lucile, he would wed as it were England itself. Corinne, who in agonising anxiety has followed him to England, learns his state of mind, and sends him back his ring. Oswald believes that she has ceased to love him, and marries Lucile. He learns of the wrong he has done her, and the story ends tragically with his remorse, and Corinne's death.