Laurel Crowns. By Emma Marshall. (J. Nisbet and Co.)—Mrs. Marshall
should really be a little more sparing of her readers' feelings. We do not know how many of her characters go through sufferings that will draw sympathetic tears from tender hearts. There is Max, the athletic, lad who has his leg amputated, and. Dick, his friend, who, after doing the mischief, runs oft to sea; and the poor waif "Posy," and her sister "Takes," who dies in the hospital,—every one of them figures of the pathetic kind. The lesson of the story—that it is sometimes well to miss the aims on which the heart is set, if higher things can be gained thereby—is inculcated with force and tact, and in a quite uncommon variety of ways. The element of adventure in the book is found in Dick's experience of a cabin-boy's life, and his restoration to health of body and mind in a Sailors' Home at Hong Kong. To say a good word for these admirable institutions is, indeed, Mrs. Marshall's chief object.
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