20 JANUARY 1894, Page 24

The King's Light-Bearer. By M. S. Comrie. (John F. Shaw

and Co.)—It is surely a matter for regret that the author of this carefully written story should have laid the scene of it so far off. We have no doubt whatever that the Waldensian valleys of Pied- mont—the Piedmont of to-day—are as they are described here ; and that the girls who flutter round the wonderful matron of the Girls' Orphanage at Luserna are drawn from life. But somehow, when they are seen so far off, there seems an air of unreality about them ; at the same time, there is no doubt that Louise, the heroine of The King's Light-Bearer, is a good sketch, and that the story of how she undergoes Christian disciplining through the life, and still more the death, of her poor little friend, Celestine, is skil- fully, if also too minutely, told. The spirit of the book is excel- lent, as perhaps it is unnecessary to say.