José

and triumphs over adversity, lend to the novel an epic hue, combined with realistic exactitude and beautified by the aureole of religious feeling." No less interesting, though in a different way, are the cold and calculating señá Isabel, the henpecked school-master, and above all D. Fernando, the decayed nobleman, the incongruities of whose situation afford full scope to the author's sympathetic humor. Mr. Howells finds room for criticism in the final treatment of this character. "The author," he says, "helps himself out with a romantic and superfluous bit of self-sacrifice, and spoils the pleasure of the judicious in his work by the final behavior of an otherwise admirably studied hidalgo." It seems to us, on the contrary, that the dénouement was indicated: compelled to abandon the home of his race, and having accomplished his final mission of uniting the much-tried lovers, he dies, without dishonor, leaving behind him a grateful memory in the hearts of his friends.