Imogen ; or, Only Eighteen. By Mrs. Molesworth. (W. and
R. Chambers.)—This is not a very pleasant story ; but it is well in- tended and well worked out, and may, not impossibly, do good. A plot is laid, half in malice, half in thoughtlessness, against the heroine. What she suffers, and how she escapes from the mischief that might have been done, makes a narrative of some interest, though, as we have said, not of an exactly attractive kind. As usual with all that Mrs. Molesworth does, the characters are skil- fully touched, Mrs. Wentworth, not by any means a perfect woman, being as good a study as any.—A Golden Gossip, by Mrs. Whitney (Ward, Lock, and Co.), is another story of the didactic kind, and of no little merit. Cyrilla Ray makes an interesting heroine, and the story of her fortunes is told with the skill and good feeling which Mrs. Whitney always shows. The donottment is as unex- pected as it is effective, and makes the tale more coherent, —a result which such surprises do not always bring about.—A Girl with No Name. By Judith Hathaway. (Digby and Long.)—This is a love- story, told in the first person. The motive is very familiar. The heroine thinks that a stigma rests on her birth, refuses to enter- tain, for this reason, a worthy man's love, and ultimately has her happiness assured by a timely revelation. Whether such things
as happened to Helen's parents do actually occur in real life is, perhaps, doubtful ; but they are among the accepted "properties" of fiction, and are used with a fair amount of skill in the story before us.—Out of the Fashion. By Mrs. L. T. Meade. (Methuen.) —Here is yet another love-story. Miss Power is a delightful old lady, more easily found, we fear, in fiction than in real life, but certainly pleasant to read about. The little drama in which she plays the part of a dea as machine is sufficiently entertaining. The illustrations (by W. Paget) deserve a word of special praise.— Bashful Fifteen, by Mrs. L. T. Meade (Cassell and Co.), has a look of Miss Edgeworth's stories, with a certain modern polish put on them. The unprincipled Janet and her foolish sister are quite the sort of characters which Miss Edgeworth was accustomed to por- tray for the warning of her readers. This is a good story, though the interests concerned are of the smallest.
Previous page
