For Abigail. By Silas K. Hocking. (Frederick Warne and Co.)
—Mr. Hocking's pictures of cottage life are always natural and well-drawn. The scene of his last book is for the most part laid in a small Cornish village. The hero of the story was left by his mother when an infant on the doorstep of one John Vivian, a miner. He and his wife determine to keep the child and treat it as their own. They do so ; and young Paul grows up in ignorance of the mystery which surrounds his birth. He falls in love with the daughter of a farmer ; but the father will not hear of any in- timacy between them, on account of the difference in position. Eventually, Paul is discovered to be "a prince in disguise," and the obstacles to his happiness no longer exist. The story is very prettily told. In descriptions of homely village life, Mr. Hocking is in his element. But is not Lady Penrith's madness rather unreal ? It seems almost a pity that Mr. Hocking did not con- trive some more natural, if less original way, of bringing the child to his humble home.
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