There was Once a Prince. By M. E. Mann. (Henry
and Co.) —Herein we have described a remarkable friendship which springs up between a young man, whose days are supposed to be num- bered, and a wild, untutored farmer's daughter barely in her teens. It is a very skilful study of two most strongly contrasted characters. The child, unmanageable by anybody else, is com- pletely docile at a word from the gentle though commanding invalid, whom she worships, and whose life, by affording him interest, she actually prolongs. Laura Rolfe's home-life, her hard- working mother and weak brother, and cruel step-father, are all important characters in the story. The death of Mrs. Straker is almost too tragic, and Straker himself is perhaps a little too much of a child-beater. None the less are the sufferings of the poor mother delineated with great pathos and power. Laura, we know, will turn out to be a noble character; and how she prospered and how she was rewarded we leave readers of There was Once a Prince to find out. The book is well worth reading, for it is clever and it is fresh.
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