Blue Bell. By Mrs. G. C. Hudleston. 3 vols. (Samuel
Tinsley.)— This is a lively and readable tale, deriving some of its attraction, per- haps, from the comparative strangeness of its surroundings (the scene is laid in Canada), but showing easy and natural sketching of character, and dialogue of which it is not impossible to imagine that it may have been spoken. The heroine is quite undeserving of the exalted position of being the centre of a story, except for her beauty, which we must take on Mrs. Hudleston's valuation. She falls in lore in a very silly way with a most undesirable young officer—there is a strong military colour, we should say, in the tale—and marries another young officer, only this time a Navy man, in a way still more silly. But fortune befriends her. She is taken in the capacity of a governess to the very place whore recognition as a person of importance awaited her, and not only has the pleasure of being owned by a noble grandfather and made comfortable for life, but also has the far greater satisfaction of triumphing over the mean-spirited employer who had accused her of flirting, and resolved to visit her with immediate dismissal. In the character and fortunes of Cecil, who may be supposed to dispute the position of heroine with "Blue Bell," the author attempts something more subtle, and is not unsuccessful. An improvement is urgently needed in her style. To talk of a young lady "circulating" the woods for instance, is not English. Possibly it may be Canadian, but then the woods were in England.
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