18 OCTOBER 1890, Page 25

A Girl of the People. By L. T. Meade. (Methuen.)—Mrs.

Meade's heroine is a Liverpool flower-girl, and is drawn with more than her usual vigour. She promises her dying mother to keep her little twin-brothers from harm, and the story tells us how she kept her promise. An excellent story it is. Mrs. Meade's strong point is not in her plots, as we have had occasion to point out once or twice before. Perhaps one might criticise the means by which the objectionable suitor constrains " Bet " to engage herself to him, though she loves another; nor do we quite understand how the honest lover was persuaded to make such a fool of himself as he did. But these, after all, are trifles. In books of this kind, probabilities do not count for much, one way or the other. What we want is a vivid portraiture of character, and broad and whole- some lessons about life. These Mrs. Meade gives us.