Half-Brothers. By Hestia Stratton. (Religious Tract Society.) —This is an
uncommonly powerful story. We have seldom seen a tale in which the truth that a man shall reap as he has sown is worked out more effectively, and, at the same time, with less offence to the susceptibilities of a reader. Sidney Martin, caught by the charm of a pretty face, marries a girl far beneath him in rank and in education. He finds that she is silly, uncultured, unsympathetic : they quarrel ; he leaves her in a rage, but with- mit the intention of deserting her. She dies in childbirth. The confidential messenger whom he sends out afterwards to make inquiries, is killed in a diligence accident while returning, and the episode seems to have faded entirely out of the man's life. He goes into business, inherits a large property, becomes an eminent philanthropist, and is, in most eyes, including those of the admirable woman whom, after due inquiries made, he marries, an honourable, God-fearing man. But though the " mills of God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small," and Sidney Martin meets with his des .rts. How his fault is discovered in after-) e rs, just when its discovery hits him the hardest blow, what suffering it brings upon him, and how he expiates his sin, is toll in an admir .ble way. There is a breadth in Miss He4ba Stretton's views of life which gives a peculiar force to hat she writes. We have always admired her work, but this is, in our ju figment, at least as good as anything that we have before seen trim her pen.
Previous page
