In some ways I think that they will be fortunate who do not read _A Remedy Against Sin_ (HUTCHINSON) till the vicissitudes of book-life have deprived it of its pictorial wrapper, because, though highly attractive as a drawing, the very charmingly-clad minx of the illustration is hardly a figure to increase one's sympathy with her as an injured heroine. And of course it is precisely this sympathy that Mr. W. B. MAXWELL is playing for--first, last and all the time. His title and the puff's preliminary will doubtless have given you the aim of the story, "to influence the public mind on one of the most vital questions of the day," the injustice of our divorce laws. For this end Mr. MAXWELL has exercised all his ability on the picture of a foolish young wife, chained to a lout who is shown passing swiftly from worse to unbearable, and herself broken at last by the ordeal of the witness-box in a "defended action." Inevitably such a book, a record of disillusion and increasing misery, can hardly be cheerful; tales with a purpose seldom are. But the poignant humanity of it will hold your sympathy throughout. You may think that Mr. MAXWELL too obviously loads his dice, and be aware also that (like others of its kind) the story suffers from over-concentration on a single theme. It moves in a world of incompatibles. The heroine's kindly friend is tied to a dipsomaniac wife; her coachman has no remedy for a ruined home because of the expense of divorce, and so on. To a great extent, however, Mr. MAXWELL'S craft has enabled him to overcome even these obstacles; his characters, though you may suspect manipulation, remain true types of their rather tiresome kind, and the result is a book that, though depressing, refuses to be put down. But as a wedding-present--no! * * * * *