THOMASIN A.* .AT last we have an authoress with sufficient

ability and ready will to do justice to stepmothers, and we ask her in tones of very natural reproachfulness why she did not do it ? Stepmothers are a much slandered class, and we want to see them defended and praised. There are heartless and tender mothers of both kinds, and we verily believe the heartless stepmothers would be found -upon examination in less than due proportion. The motherly instinct does not long protect the child from cruelty or selfishness, if these be in the mother's disposition, and with good women, or women who try to be good, the knowledge that this instinct is wanting is but an additional check to temper, and an added motive for untiring patience. The other side has yet to be described. The thoughtless partisanship of young people, their exaggerated

ThOMOSilla. By the Author of "Dorothy," dm. London : Henry S. King and Co. sense of injustice, the absence of all allowance for the inevitable differences of the natural and artificial relationship which must affect the mother's feeling, and the perfect blindness to those dif- ferences as they affect their own feeling for and behaviour towards her. We have never quite forgiven Mrs. Gaskell for her picture of a stepmother so full of serious faults as Mrs. Gib- son, admirably as she has drawn it in her most delightful book, Mothers and Daughters, and much as we admire the skill and truth- fulness to nature which it displays. Why could she not have used her great talents in defending this maligned class, instead of casting another stone at them ? The author of Dorothy has got as far as describing a sweet, wise gentlewoman who becomes a stepmother ; but when she had created this relationship, we suppose, in school-boy phrase, she "hulked it," for it is not allowed to the stepmother to perform the duties or enjoy the triumphs of that difficult position ; her step-daughter is given the choice of a home, and elects to remain with her grand-parents. We were greatly disappointed when we arrived at this unwelcome decision, because it was apparent to us that our hopes of a clever reply in the cause "The World versus Stepmothers" were shat- tered; thenceforward we felt injured by the abilities of the craven

and faithless advocate. However, we are bound to admit, when the bitterness of disappointment has passed, that the author of Dorothy—why will not writers who object to give their names

adopt a convenient nom de plume I it is awkward to have to say, "the Author of Dorothy, De Cressy, Still Waters, &c."—was not called upon to write specially about stepmothers, or to avoid them, when they entered naturally, though subsidiarily, into her history, because we should have been gratified; and therefore it comes to this, that we have no serious complaint to make. On the contrary, Thomasina is an amusing, animated, and well-told story, in which the women are, however, more life-like and natural than the men ; and thus, as usual, would betray the sex of the author, if that were not also done by many other little trifles ; such, for instance, as talking of " rivetting with links;" every man knows that you rivet with rivets, and that you may rivet links, but not with links—ladies would be surprised to know how easily the vagueness of their ideas about common things betrays them in their writings. But the gen- tlemen of the story, nevertheless—that is, two of them—are the most original creations in the book ; opening out, in fact, a new vein in fictitious history, and we regret that our author's insight into male character did not enable her to free her sketches of it from incon- sistency and exaggeration. The women are ably drawn, but with the exception of Thomasina are not striking. The story is of a beautiful, affectionate, and impetuous girl, who, with her father and mother, resides at the family mansion with her grand-parents, Sir Richard and Lady Bertram. By the bye, we have observed that Richard is a favourite name both in real life and novels for a baronet, and we can only explain the regularity with which it crops up in this connection, by the ease with which it is as regularly contracted into S'richard, the form in which it invari- ably meets our ears. But this is a digression. Sir Richard— and this quality obtains universally in baronets with this Christian name—is despotic, and rules his grown-up son with a rod of iron, so that the poor daughter-in-law is a cypher, and soon pines and dies. She is, however, avenged by her little girl, who is a rod put in pickle for himself by this arbitrary old gentleman. For- tunately for the happiness of the son, whose strength and weakness are both shown in his consistent respect and obedience to his father, both son and father agree heartily on one point, and that is in lavish concessions to their darling and utter submission to her will ; and no part of the book is so nice as the descriptions of the proceedings of the trio, of which the little three-year-old is the connecting and harmonising link When she was three years old, Thomasina was considered old enough to go to church on Sunday mornings, and, with sedate dignity, she trotted along the flagged church-path, holding fast by her father's broad fore-finger, and took her place in the great square pew, with its moreen curtains, depending from a brass rod, which could be drawn at pleasure if the sun shone in, or if there was a draught, or in the still more pro- bable contingency that Sir Richard felt disposed for a nap. Under these circumstances the pew was as good as a play-room ; for Thomasina sat on a great straw hassock at her father's feet, and bnilt towers with the prayer-books, feeling a fearful pleasure in the moment when they fell

down with a thud, and Sir Richard shook his stick at her And when at last she grew sleepy, it was pleasant to climb on to her father's knee, and to nestle her head into his waistcoat, while the monotonous voice of the old rector lulled her into a slumber from which she was only aroused when the sermon was over. While she sat up sleepily, with one cheek crimson, and the brown rings of hair falling into her eyes, all dewy and bewildered with unshed tears, her father would pet and soothe her, and wait until she was fully awake before he tied the broad

white string of her straw bonnet under her chin Sunday morn- ing was good in Thomasina's eyes ; but a fine Sunday afternoon was even more delightful, and in the happy memories of childhood life seems

to have been all summer and sunshine. The straw bonnet was consigned to the bandbox, from which it only emerged on state occasions, and Thomasina was arrayed in a white sun-bonnet of telescopic form, fur- nished with a deep flounce, which fell over her little bare shoulders by way of tippet, and she set out with Anthony and Sir Richard to make a tour of the Home Farm Everything was done with that regard to law and precedent which is so dear to the heart of childhood, and her joy was not less pure because Sir Richard and her father looked on with loving eyes, declaring her to be the sweetest little maid on whom the sun had ever shined, and that she was born to be the flower of all the Bertrams."

But time bears the unspoilable little woman into the schoolroom,

a room where the agent's sweet daughter instructs also her own brothers and sisters ; and Thomasina's father soon learns to love his child's teacher. Then Sir Richard storms, and Lady Bertram follows his lead, and the agent is dismissed and is displeased with his daughter, and even Thomasina's will cannot conquer her grandfather's. But Sir Richard has a sister with the true Bertram spirit, and not prejudiced in this case by self-interest; and in due time the Baronet yields—without forgiving, however—and the child, feeling that "father has Polly "—as she has learnt to call her governess from her fellow-pupils, Polly' s brothers and sisters—and that grandfather will miss her most, stays with him. It is here and in similar situations that our authoress overdraws both the imperiousness of the Baronet and the submission of the son. It is not beyond probability that the son, accustomed to yield to his father's will, might give way to his frightened lady- love's desire to break off the engagement. But it is to the last degree unlikely that in order to win consent, a high-principled, cultivated, and honourable man—however yielding—would sub- mit to such indignities as his father put upon him, or that an honest man and proud old Tory like the Baronet would dream of demanding from his son what would be degrading for the heir to his own ancient title and estates. It is written, however, in Thomasina that the heir had to take up with the small house and old shabby furniture and himself do the work and draw the humble salary of the late agent ; he had to give up his previous income, to put down his hunters, and to ride over the estate and make out a report daily, and to be at the Baronet's most unreason- able beck and call at all hours of the day and night ; obliged to desert his lonely little wife to play cribbage or drink wine with the baronet, and to listen all the time perhaps to such abuse as no mere agent could or would have stood :-

"Every morning after breakfast be dutifully waited on Sir Richard, to receive instructions or give his own report ; nearly every afternoon they rode round the estate together, and after a while even this was not enough, and Sir Richard ordered rather than invited him to remain to dinner, in order to resume the discussion of some matter under considera- tion. On the first occasion Anthony yielded, sending off an intimation to Mary that he had been detained, and Mary did not, on his return, add to his annoyance by telling him that she had waited dinner for an hour before the tardy messenger arrived to explain the cause of delay. Two days afterwards Anthony was emboldened to reply to the same sugges- tion, Will not to-morrow do as well, Sir Richard ?'—' No, sir,' said the old man, firing up ; to-morrow will not do as well. I will have you at my own time or not at all. It is intolerable to assume that you are to draw the agent's pay and then shirk his work.' Although Anthony

winced under the accusation be stood his ground..manfully. Then, Sir Richard, I will go home to dinner and be back here before you have finished your second glass of wine.' It was evident that Sir Richard did not like it, yet Anthony was able to construe his inarticulate grunt into acquiescence. He went home to eat a hurried dinner, and since he did not choose to take out another horse, he walked back to the Chase through the mire and slush of a wet winter's night. When he got there Sir Richard was sleepy or sullen, and not inclined for business, so that he played a game of chess with Thomasina and a rubber of piquet with his mother and trudged wearily home again."

Were it not, however, for occasional exaggeration, these two char- acters are ably drawn and almost unique. The imperious im- patience of the old man, who cannot perceive that his forty-year- old son is no longer a child, as well as his child, and who yet clings to him, loving him while he abuses him, is described with much spirit and truth ; and so also is the son, whose obedience—the result of early habit and of religious veneration—when it does not degenerate into servility, we can easily conceive to be drawn from life.

Thomasina, as we have hinted, turns the tables on her grand- father in his old age, and when she is mistress at the hall pets and bullies him as much as he used to do her, but with more judgment and sounder discretion. Polly has some brothers staying with her, to whom Thomasina is anxious that her grandfather should be attentive: —

"'I want to tell you about Polly's brothers. They have come to stay with her for a fortnight, and I wish that you would lend them horses and ask them to ride with us, for you know that father cannot mount them. And I have asked them to dinner to-morrow.'—' What should you do that for?' said Sir Richard.—' Because it will please Polly, and you know, grandfather, as I often tell you, that you are not half kind enough to Polly. Besides, I do like to see some one who has gone about the world, and who knows that there is a world beyond the limits of the county. Robin has been at sea for four years, and Jem is very clever, though he is freckled and wears spectacles.'—' I do not know why you should bother me with a parcel of raw lads,' said Sir Richard:—/ shall. amuse them,' replied Thomasina serenely ; you will only have to take. Polly in to dinner, and remember that I shall be really vexed if you are not kind to bee= I am sure that I am always civil enough,' rejoined Sir Richard.'—' So you are, horribly civil. I want you to make her happy by talking of the children and asking them up here. It is Tom's- birthday next week, and you may invite the nursery to drink tea and eat strawberries here in the garden.'—' You can arrange all that sort of thing, Thomasina.'—' That would not please Polly half so much. She will think it so nice of you to remember Tom's birthday.'—'But I don't remember it,' said Sir Richard sturdily.—' Then I shall remind you of it. just before dinner, and if I find that you have not given the invitation before the second course is on the table, I shall send Giles round witk a message.' Sir Richard laughed and resigned himself. He had tyrannised over his family and dependents for a good many years, but. he was pliable as wax in the hands of Thomasina."

Here is a scrap of another amusing encounter between these hot— spirited Bertrams. Thomasina admires a Radical candidate for a neighbouring borough. Her grandfather is speaking :—

" do not know what you mean by spiteful and impertinent,"

Thomasina ; they let the fellow off more easily than he deserves. If the Camdens saw less of him than we did, it is a proof of their good' sense, and he had better not come here again, for I shall tell Giles to. shut the door in his face.'—' If you do,' said Thomasina hotly, 'I shall take the first opportunity ot shaking hands with him before all the world, and I shall tell him how deeply I regret that party spirit should allow you to forget how one gentleman ought to behave to another.' Sir Richard took the retort calmly, as he was in the habit of taking

Thomasina's impetuous sayings. Depend upon it,' said he, the scoundrel will not show his face here again; his own conscience will, tell him what I think of his rascally doings.'—' Now you are beginning to swear and use bad language, and I shall go and dine and sleep at the. cottage,' said Thomasina.—' Upon my Boni I did not swear,' said Sir Richard, quite ready to deny the imputation with an oath, 'though it would provoke a saint to hear you speak up for such a rascal.'"

Sir Richard's sister, Thomasina the elder, widow of General Grey,, is as clever, if not quite as lovable a sketch as Thomasina the. younger. It is easy to suppose that with Sir Richard's domineer- ing spirit, and without the devotion which bound the baronet and. his granddaughter together, the amenities between Mrs. Grey and the residents at Bertram's Chase were not striking. We will close appropriately with her departure from the Hall, and leave our readers to gather the story for themselves from the perusal ot these two lively, simple, and pleasant volumes :—

"Sir Richard came in to say that the carriage was ready, and, while. he accompanied his sister to the door, Thomasina executed a pirouette round the room with an animation on which the Bertram ancestors seemed to look down from their picture-frames with grim amazement- She was still breathless when Sir Richard returned. Well, grand- father' how do you feel ? I am ever so much better since I heard the. gravel crunching under the carriage wheels and knew that she was really off.'—' It is quite right that she should come once a year,' said' Sir Richard, but I am never sorry when the visit is over, and I do not think that your aunt's tongue grows smoother with years. For one thing, I believe that she need to say a good many disagreeable things to your poor granny, and now they all fall to my share.'—' And to mine, grandfather ; do not suppose that I am spared. What a nice, comfort- able dinner we shall have this evening, and how much better-tempered all the servants will be !'—' They do say,' oliserved Sir Richard, in a. meditative tone' 'that she had a bad time of it with Robert Grey, but I should think that she gave him as good as she got. There is no deny- ing that she is an aggravating woman, and the confounded part of it is., that what she says is so apt to come true.'"