"Mr. Douglas Sladen's first novel is a distinct success. He has been exceptionally fortunate in his _mise en scène_. He wanted to write a Deceased Wife's Sister novel. In itself, one can hardly imagine a more unpromising subject; and I confess I took up the book with the gravest misgivings. But they were soon dissipated. For what does Mr. Sladen do but transplant that familiar British grievance to Japan, of all places in the world, and introduce us to European Yokohama society, which has never yet been exhausted from the novelist's standpoint! On this virgin soil he has planted two heroines--sisters--both delightful, and both sympathetic. Most writers would have made their hero marry the wrong sister first; but Mr. Sladen, more wisely, makes him marry the right one--the one he loves, the one who loves him--while yet keeping the reader's interest mainly engaged on the one he doesn't marry. This is excellently managed. Again, the novelty of the local colour and the brightness of the story make us forget the familiarity of the annual and perennial grievance on which it hinges. In due time the first wife dies at an excellent juncture, and Phil Sandys, the hero, does not marry her sister Bryn, the delicious heroine. On the contrary, to prevent scandal, he sends her home to the England she has never seen, consigned to the care of a most unpleasant rector cousin. All the circumstances conspire to produce a _dénouement_. You foresee but one end--and it doesn't happen. A steamer to Melbourne, where such marriages are legal, and a short way out of the trouble? Nothing of the sort: Mr. Sladen takes a bolder and more dangerous course. Bryn's objection to a marriage with Phil is a strictly ecclesiastical one--the Church forbids: but the objection goes down before a sufficient cause like a Japanese house before a gentle earthquake. How Phil and Bryn substituted a union blessed by the American Minister to Japan and the whole resident Christian population for a strictly legal ceremony must be read in the novel itself. Certainly, the story as a whole succeeds in interesting and amusing the most jaded reader; it is wholesome, healthful, breezy, and airy. Its Japanesquery is delightful; and its ethics will only disturb the peace of the Anglican clergy, while deepening in the minds of not a few among the laity the sense of opposition to a bishop-made restriction, which prevents the legal union of two people so obviously designed for one another as its hero and heroine.--G. A." (_Grant Allen in "The Westminster Gazette."_) NEW STORY by the Author of that successful Novel "A WELSH SINGER." TORN SAILS. A TALE OF A WELSH VILLAGE. By ALLEN RAINE. _In cloth gilt_, =6s.=