22 APRIL 1893, Page 27

In the Sunshine of Her Youth. By Beatrice Whitby. 3

vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)—The motive of this story is old enough. but the treatment is fresh and novel. A spendthrift father, a girl who finds herself compelled to be a sacrifice for the benefit of her family, and an elderly suitor who is not nearly so liberal when he becomes a husband, are familiar characters. Still, this is a readable story, and it has portions of very considerable merit. The picture of the widow's apathetic desolation is as vivid as it is true to Nature. The student, and the girl who alternately hates and loves him, are a vigorous and characteristic pair of lovers. There is, we cannot but think, an unnecessary tragedy in the death of the sister. But novelists seldom allow us to rise up wholly pleased from the banquet with which they provide us.