Put to the Test. By Jeanie Hering. (George Routledge and
Sons.)—Although this volume contains the sayings and doings less of adults than of boys and girls, the moral which it teaches subtly pervades it instead of being directly enforced, and hence we have not included it in our list of gift-books. Mrs. Adams Acton, who writes under what we presume is her maiden name of Jeanie Hering, and who dedicates Put to the Test to Mrs. Gladstone, here gives us what is in every sense a truly delightful book. She transplants a man of business who, owing to overwork, has broken down in health, from London, along with his family of boys and girls, to Scotch mists, picturesque scenery, and " roughing it." There they are, each and all, "put to the test " by having to undergo a process of hardening, and otherwise adapting themselves to the circumstances in which they are placed,—an ordeal through which they come not only safely, but triumphantly. Mrs. Acton shows a great deal of artistic skill in her treatment of Mr. Duke's children, especially of the provoking boy of the name of "Bunch" (his real name is Aldegond), who is always getting into scrapes. The true hero of the story, however, is a terrible Uncle Peter, the harsh elder brother and senior partner of Mr. Duke, who, thanks to an accident and the kind treatment (including the plain speaking) of his brother's children, becomes " quite a reformed character," by developing from a Scrooge into a man who is nothing worse than a Lawrence Boythorn. Altogether, Put to the Test is, alike from the artistic, the literary, and the boy-and-girl points of view, an almost perfect book of its class.
Previous page
