Friends and Fortune is one of that class of tales
which, though in the form of a juvenile book, contains as much thought, matter, and in- terest, as some three-volume novels. Margaret Armadale a young heiress, tired of the interested flatteries and friendships of the fashionable world, induces her companion to change places with her, and visit a country family who are unacquainted with her person. The behaviour towards Esther, the supposed companion, produces incidents both serious and humorous, enables the heiress to read characters by a steadier light, and gives her jueter views of life and its duties. The disguise also procures her a bashful but high-spirited lover, whom she would not have obtained in her own character, and is the means of converting her to a serious but sober Christianity. There is nothing very striking in the per- sons or incidents of Friends and Fortune, but they are sufficiently na- tural, and they effect the object of interesting the reader and carrying out the story. They are also made to teach the mischief of any deception ; though this point is handled rather gingerly ; the punishment) in fact, falling upon Miss Martin, the real companion, who is wooed by a fortune-hunter in her character of heiress.
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