A PARISIAN FAMILY.*

WE are quite willing to admit that a story by Madame Guizot de- Witt, and one which Miss Muloch has thought it worth while to- translate, comes to us with a double guarantee of its value and a fair claim to attention. But though the story is simple and natural and dictated by true feeling and right principle, we con- fess we look in vain for anything quite worthy of the joint names- of the guarantors. Even as a story for girls—and there is no inti- mation that it was written especially for them—we think it fails. There is no variety of incident, and though there are plenty of young people, all but the central figure are very subsidiary, and that, around which the rest are grouped, possesses less to interest and attract than any of the others.

We are inclined to believe that both author and translator were inspired by the hope that anything about the French would' go down just now, while they are objects of such profound sym- pathy and commiseration to the English public, and that with this feeling Madame Guizot de Witt looked up an old manuscript which she had previously not thought worth committing to the publishers' hands.

The first three-quarters of the book relate the frivolities and extravagancies (into which she leads her sister next in age) of a young girl who has been left motherless, and whose father—an

• A Parisian Family. By Madame Gnizot de Witt. Translated by the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." London : Sampson Low, Son, and idanstod- unbeliever—is too reserved and unhappy to endure any new person, in loco matris, at the head of his establishment, and yet who v411 not part with his children to place them under the care of such a

one. The few remaining chapters describe an accident and an illness which happen to the same young lady, and which, thanks to the tender nursing of a religious, but not serious aunt, lead to the lasting good of both father and daughter.

The first part is dreary enough, in all conscience ; relieved only by glimpses of the merry-hearted wise and good aunt aforesaid, — a very charming picture it is of a sweet Christian lady—whenever an opening in the dull and tiresome array of incessantly recurring dress and parties, which so monotonously hedge in our story, reveals it to our sight ; or refreshed by the sallies of the youngest of the three 'motherless girls ; sallies not very numerous or brilliant, but such as a clever vivacious child will often enliven us with. The second part of the story is both a little better and a little worse than the first, containing, as it does, the virtues and defects which are especially noticeable in the book. It is the more stir- ring part, and the dreary tale of frivolity gives place to a few incidents of travel, and such amusement as can be obtained from the moral shrugs of the good uncle at the masses of luggage which his untravelled Parisian brother-in-law drags about with him. And the effect of change of place, and particularly of the grand and unaccustomed mountain scenery on the girls, in weaning them from the unhealthy excitement of City life, and rousing their dormant sympathy with the religiousness and refine- ment and cultivation of those by whom they are accompanied, is truly and nicely, though very briefly, told. On the other hand, the falling into a lake and being fished out by a gallant cousin, having a dangerous fever and rising from it a converted Christian, is a chain of events not, perhaps, strikingly original. Then what- ever is improbable in the story occurs in this division of it. The illness is much more sudden and dangerous than would in all likelihood have resulted from a very brief immersion—and not in a heated state of body—in a lake in summer time. Nor can we testify to the probability of a youth's giving up all his prospects in life, immediately after leaving school, to devote himself to the poor of Paris, because he has become interested in them in acting occasionally as his father's deputy. Such conduct has, no doubt, a precedent, nevertheless it is anything but a course which even a religions-minded lad would take. It savours of the "ministering children" style of precocity. A healthy-minded boy is not often religious. Religion must come with experience and thought and trial, and one as noble, generous, and self-deny- ing as he is described to be would be much more impressed with the importance of getting rich that he might relieve the terrible necessities of the poor, and so win his way to their hearts, than he would with the desire to speak to them simply as a poor minister of Christ, almost as indigent as themselves.

The story has, however, some very redeeming points. Except- ing the boyish resolve we have just referred to, it is that rare thing, a tale of conversion to the love of Christ entirely free from

religious cant, inculcating a healthy, cheerful, free devotion to the great principle of Christianity, a surrender to the will of God from a deep love for him. The father and mother who teach this, not by preaching or much adthonition, but by example, and by an earnestness from which a laughter-loving spirit is not excluded, are very beautifully drawn, and we ought to see much more of them than we do. Here is the short scene between them when the unhappy atheistic Paris widower writes to his sister-in-law for help :—

" Here is the long-expected letter, Charles,' said Madame de Breese, entering her husband's study with looks as pleased as if she were an- nouncing some excellent news, instead of tidings which required her to break through all her favourite habits, and upset her whole life, without hope of gratitude from those for whom she was doing it.—' A letter from Louis?' guessed her husband at once.—' Yes. Our poor little nieces are going all wrong, some morally, some physically, and he wants me to come and set them right. Only I am not to make them young Puri- tans ! No; make them Christians. May I see the letter, Cecile? '—' I have a groat mind not to show it to you ; it is such a mixture of frank- ness and repugnance, which would have vexed me bad I not known poor Louis so well. How unhappy he must have been before he could write me this letter!' —' Give it me, my dear ; I know his peculiarities as well as you.'—Nevertheless, several times M. de Breese grew hot in reading the letter, folded it up carefully, and returned it to his wife, saying, with visible self-restraint:—'The necessity of the case is clear. May God give ns both wisdom and patience to meet it.'—Madame de Bresse pressed her husband's hand and quitted him. Long as she had desired the time when she could be of use to her sister's motherless children, she foresaw that it would be a most difficult and complicated task. It would involve leaving Bressuire indefinitely, renouncing the quiet repose she had enjoyed so long, exposing Jeanne to harmful influences. The bright side of it was, her being near her two sons at Paris, and her entire reliance on Marie, her dear and good eldest daughter, for whom she feared nothing in any change of life. It might even benefit her, making her less severe in her goodness. And thinking over all things, in the silence of her room, the mother ended in the mother's best refuge—prayer. When Madame de Breese rejoined her husband, he looked as peaceful as herself, and as well prepared to meet the impatience and the touchi- ness which he knew he should find in their brother-In-law, as well as his own loss in renouncing his beloved country solitude.—tI think Ills& better write a word of assent to Louis, and go up to Paris next week, to see his children, and seek apartments for ourselves.'—' As you will,' re- plied M. de Breese. ' And shall you promise not to make Puritans of

your nieces ? Am I a Puritan ? ' his wife answered, smiling. Marie, I grant, has some turn that way. But it seems to me quite possible to win over Louis's children without offending their father.' So M. Ram-

bert was written to thus My dear Louis,—Charles and I are at your service entirely. I shall come to Paris next week, to fled apartments near you. Perhaps you had better not tell the girls beforehand, lest they should expect a severe (bonne where they will only find a loving aunt.. Marie and Jeanne will delight in seeing their cousins.—Believe In the

And here we may as well say that their efforts are not fruitless, and that their self-sacrifice is amply rewarded. Then we have the pleasant little Caroline ; a sharp, warm-hearted, independent- minded little woman, faithful to the memory of her mother, and not to be seduced into an interest in dress and gossip. She gives her senkirs many an unpleasant rap on their knuckles in a way that none but a little brother or sister—with the utter fearlessness and irreverence which are only found in that relationship—can.

For instance, when her sisters are puzzled how to do their shop- ping without the shabbiness of their clothes being observed if they should light on acquaintances, Caroline, who is indignant at the groundlessness of their false shame, suggests their going at eight in the morning. " What an idea !" they object, " to meet all the cooks in Paris who do their shopping as they go to market !"

" But the cooks won't eat you," replies Caroline, " and at least you will not be mistaken for parlour-maids, who cannot go out so early. Besides, you are too young and too foolish-looking ; nobody would take you into their service." And at another time, when she is complaining of the mistaken economy of cutting out their own dresses when they don't understand it, and is told that she, at anyrate, should hold her tongue, as she will have all the advantage without the trouble, she retorts, " Bah ! since we have our allowance in common, all the advantage is on your side ; it does not take near so much stuff to make my frocks as yours."

But there is another side to this little woman's character, and she springs into her aunt's arms, when the latter comes to them in Paris, with a scream of joy, and lies there in profound emotion ; sobbing out at last that "it felt as if mamma had come back again." But then the elder sisters and their follies are the staple of the story, and though their airs and graces are cleverly described, they are neither original nor interesting.

Madame de Breese, however, is worth knowing. She is another of the many instances—for fiction in this respect neither belies nor exaggerates fact—of that wise and anxious carefulness in the training of children—overlooking neither body, mind, nor soul— which is characteristic of the true French lady, and more or less of all French mothers, and which English mothers might emulate with infinite advantage to their little ones.

We are tired of complaining of bad grammar. But we feet injured when we cannot even read the works of such writers as Miss Muloch and Mr. Anthony Trollope without being incessantly fidgeted by it. Why will they take no pains to correct the few faults which must frequently have been pointed out to them, and which it would be so easy to master once for all? To say nothing

of loose English, mistakes of the following kind abound in this story ; the two first occurring frequently :—" I embroider oit evenings ;" " Nor I neither ;" " Neither her sisters or brother ;" "She had already began," &c., &c. But as a translation it is most happy, and there is nothing left to wish for. Except in one or two

trifling instances, the English flows as easily and without effort or awkwardness, as if the story had been first written in that language.

The get-up of the book could not be prettier. The ornament of the French national colours in two narrow bands across the binding is a very happy thought.