True of Heart. By Kay Span. (Virtuo.)—We do not remember
to have seen before the nom de plume of Kay Span, but if this is a first essay it is a very happy one. It is a tale of domestic life, told in the simplest, most unaffected way, with no inconsiderable amount of humour, and with pathetic effects, produced by genuine literary skill rather than by the coarse machinery of tragical events. The dialogue is remarkably easy and natural, and the writer even achieves success where groat novelists have often failed,—that is, in the letters which she introduces into her story; these are really charming in their way, and convince WI that, in theory at least, the art of letter-writing is not lost. Neither critics nor readers will be disposed to cavil at sundry moral changes, rather marvellous, perhaps, in themselves, which happen to the dis- agreeable people, in order that the nice people may be made happy. We have no fault to find except with the caricature of an old-maid aunt Cissy, which is introduced towards the and of the tale, and which seems an exception to tho general soberness and truths of the writer's outlines and colouring.
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