Foundations. By Mrs. Walter Ward. (National Society. 2s..) born at
the beginning ; she is married at the end; in the interval she appears pretty frequently. Many other people appear also, some of them being, so to speak, irrelevant. There is the episode, for instance, of Luke and his wife. We are taken back to the days of their courtship, and they both die in extreme old age. They are interesting people. Hannah is so especially. She saves for three years to procure a headstone for her husband's grave, and the epitaph which she has cut on it is admirably brief: "Here Lies Luke Field," with her comment, "Whereabouts folks jigged was all that was needed, and too much mealy-mouthed talk was put on the tongues of them as was gone, to say nowt of t' expense." Foundations can scarcely be called a story ; but it is a book of some power, with its sane views of life and pene- trating analyses of character.
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