NOVELS.
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OLDFIELD is a -Kentucky Cranford—with a difference. The difference is that the setting of outside things in which Miss Banks puts her human figures is much more vivid than what we find in Mrs. Gaskeles story. Pictures of Nature were not much in our English novelises way; anyhow, there was no occasion for them in Cranford; but it is evident that Miss Banks greatly enjoys drawing them and painting them in vivid colours. There is a brilliant vignette, for instance, of a couple of orioles building their nest, how "at the fetching of each, fine fibre, the husband fairly turned upside down,-and hung by his feet, while singing his pride and delight," while "the wife quietly rested her soft breast on the unstable nest —with all a woman's trust." Bat the human interest is com- monly dominant. First among the " Oldfield People," though not in the least conscious of being first, is Miss Judy Bramwell. She rules the countryside, not because she is rich and influential, for she is neither, or because she has an autocratic temper— no one could have less of it—but because she is "strong enough and firm enough to cling timidly to her own gentle convictions through a bard life of privation." One thinks as one reads of that very hard saying which, for all its difficulty, is.ever and again vindicating its truth, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." To Miss Judy, who is the general adviser and consoler, comes one Sidney Wendall, who is much perplexed about her eldest child, a piece of fine porce- lain which has somehow found its way into a set of solid earthenware. "I am bound," she explains, "to bounce around and make a noise." She could not make her other children obey except by storming at them ; "but if I shout at them there is Doris turning white and shaking and looking as if she'd surely die." The end of it is that Miss Judy takes a sort of informal charge of the delicate child, not, of course, without many misgivings as to her competence for the task. The preparations anxiously made for the visitor, whom her mother is to bring the next . day, are admirably described. There is the rug made by Miss Judy's own mother on which the child is to sit; a doll, at least sixty years old, for her to play with ; and a pig and kitten, skilfully wrought by Merica, the cook, for her entertainment. But then there is the harrowing thought,—if she won't sit on the rug, and crumbles the ginger- bread untidily! Happily all goes well. The little one is docile beyond all hope, does not go beyond quivering lips when her mother leaves her, looks at the doll "as tender little mothers look at afflicted babies," and excels all expectation in the matter of the ginger-bread, "eating the pig first, and hesitating some time before eating the kitten "—a very pretty little trait—and doing both without making a single crumb. The relationship thus commenced grows into a very tender affec- tion. "Miss Dudy," says the child a few weeks later, "was it you or my- mammy that horned- me ?" Doris grows up, as might be expected, into the sweetest and loveliest of women, and is the heroine, if such a word could be used about her, of the love story, a very unsensational affair which does not get even as far as a proposal, though we are given to understand that all goes well. There is a very humorous scene when young Lynn Gordon calls upon Doris for the first time, and her mother, aware of the etiquette which prescribes an unin- terrupted interview—interruption would signify disapproval— is at her wits' end.to keep all possible intruders out of the way.. In vivid contrast to this is Miss Judy's horror, the out- come of a quite different old-world etiquette, that the girl should have been left alone.
There are other Oldfield people, whom Miss Banks delineates for us always with a firm and delicate touch,— Miss Sophia, the half-witted sister whom Miss Judy cares for with so tender a thoughtfulness ; the old Colonel with his grand manner untouched by failing intellect and ruined fortunes ; the brusque doctor and his quick-tempered wife ; and others whom we need not mention. Lady Gordon, the selfixh and cynical old gourmands, seems to us somewhat caricatured, and we could have done without the picture of the black Eunice and the brown Merica„ cooks in the Gordon
• Oldfield: a Kentucky Tale of the Last Century. By Nancy Huston Banks. London Macmillan and Co. 16a.1
delightful and the Bramwell households respectively, taborantes in uno, to wit, Enoch Cotton, the Gordon coachman. One of the most striking chapters in the book is that in which we read how Anne Watson, to minister to her disabled husband, learns to play poker with him, holding all the while that "cards are the Devil's prayer-book." The doctor has prescribed the game, and she cannot choose but to obey. " draw to a straight flush. Mr. Watson stands pat.,' repeated Anne's pale lips, as a pious soul in extremity might murmur a Latin prayer which it did not understand." Some of the traits of manners are, we must own, a little strange. Sidney Wendall, for instance, earns the bread for her children and the lazy old uncle, whose leg begins to ache whenever there is any mention of work, by going about with her budget of gossip and fun, just as a minstrel or jonglear may have earned it in mediaeval times. She is not paid in money, but a basket of food is made up for her to take home by a recognised custom: Scattered about the book are not a few wise sayings. Here is one which we shall throw, haply to be a bone of con- tention, among our readers : "No really sweet woman has a sense of humour."
One word of criticism we have to say. Miss Banks is not, we imagine, an experienced writer. One of her faults is a habit of repetition. Charles Dickens had it in his later years. A character would be labelled, so to speak, with some pecu- liarity of manner or speech, and every time he appeared the label was sure to appear also. Miss Sophia. who is something like what Mr. Dick was .to David Copperfield's aunt, always "responds promptly and firmly," though she knows nothing about the question referred to her.
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