Pounded on Paper. By Charlotte M. Yonge. (National Society.) —The
striking part of this story is the very vivid and lifelike description of Alfred Greylark and his wife Eva. The husband is nineteen and the wife two years younger ; both are factory hands, and the marriage has been hurried on—the reason seems ridiculous, yet it is taken from actual life—because the man was out of work. The wife is clever and industrious, one who has turned to good account her school training in art, but in general matters ignorant and silly. In ignorance and silliness her husband is her match, but he is a bad workman, an idler, and a gambler. Such couples are the despair of social reformers. Miss Yonge's graphic description is completed by a tragical catastrophe which is equally true to life. The terrible dramas of murder and suicide which horrify us in the newspapers have just such people as the Greylarks for the actors and sufferers in them. The main plot of the story is occupied with the fortunes of Wilfrid Truman and Lucy Darling. Wilfrid is a good fellow, but somewhat over-confident and of a jealous temper. How he is punished and how he learns to amend his fault is told by Miss Yonge in her characteristic manner. There is a multitude of other figures, each drawn, as the author's way is, with a few precise and effective touches.
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