_The Golden Barrier_ (METHUEN) was an affair of sovereigns, and the way of it was this. _Magdalen Tempest_, the heroine, had been left by her late father the mistress of many fine houses, and stacks and stacks of money. She had inherited also a disagreeable but honest butler, an aunt who was even more disagreeable but not honest, and an agent who was--well, who was the hero of the book. She had further gathered to herself a crowd of hangers-on more or less artistic, and all given to requiring small temporary loans. One of them, however, was a professed social reformer, a bold bad man of doubtful extraction, who was leagued with the aunt in a plan to marry _Magdalen_ to himself and secure control of the cash. So _Magdalen_ gave a Venetian Carnival in her great house, and it came on to thunder, and she found herself alone in a gondola with the painter (favourite hanger-on), who attempted, too vigorously, to improve the shining hour, and it was all rather awkward, when--romantically opportune arrival of the hero (name of _Denvers_), who flung the painter into the lake, clasped the heroine in his manly arms, married her and lived happy----No. That is where you are too hasty. There remained still the Golden Barrier. For, after an interlude of bliss, back came the intriguing aunt, the social reformer and all the crowd (save the submerged artist) and began to accuse _Denvers_ of living on his wife's cheque-book. How it ends you must find out. If you object that there is very little in all this to suggest the spirit of fine romance which you have learnt to associate with the names of AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE, I can only say that (while my rough synopsis does no justice to some pleasant characterization) I myself greatly prefer these two writers in their earlier and brocaded mood. * * * * *