The Sign of the Red Cross. By E. E. Green.
(Nelson and Sons.)—This story of old London Bridge brings the visitation of the Plague and the life of citizen London in the Restoration days very vividly before us. Two families—a builder's and a gold-lace maker's—are selected by the authoress to show us the home life, and latterly the awful suspense endured while the Plague swept through the place. To make them reside on London Bridge was a happy idea, and furnishes a stirring chapter in which the efforts to stay the passage of the Great Fire over the bridge are related. The Plague is a somewhat gruesome subject to choose; but as handled by the author, who has lost none of her power, the reader's attention is prevented from dwelling too much on its more terrible aspects, and directed to the pathetic scenes and the striking features in human nature revealed by a time of great trial. Historically The Sign of the Bed Cross is valuable, and to many readers not only an instructive book but an intensely interesting description of the Plague.
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