Sarah de Beronger. By Joan Ingelow. 3 vols. (Sampson Low
and Co.)—Somo of our readers will probably have made acquaintance with this tale when it first appeared in the pages of " Good Words but we may briefly indicate our opinion of its great excellence. The real heroine of the story is Hannah Goodrich, a tradesman's daughter, a young woman of some refinement, who had married a worthless husband. The man is sentenced to a long term of penal servitude, leaving his wife with two children. It became the object of the woman's life to take care that these children should grow up free from the fatal inheritance of the father's disgrace. In this effort she is helped by inheriting an uncle's property. How she carries out her purpose, how she wholly effaces herself, representing herself as the nurse of the children, and voluntarily exchanging the love which they would have felt for a mother for the weaker and more transitory affection which they would entertain for an old servant, is told in a story of admirable simplicity and pathos, its characters forcibly drawn, and its plot skilfully managed. Hannah's character is one to which it was ex- ceedingly difficult to give a natural appearance. Miss Ingelow has been remarkably successful in her attempt. Except in the matter of her great resolve, the woman is not all horoic,—a simple, loving creature, very liable to make mistakes, but clinging with a martyr's courage and devotion to the purpose of her life. Almost equal skill is shown in the representation of her husband in the second period of his life. Quito another kind of person is the Sarah de Berenger who gives her name to the story. She contributes much of the humorous element to the story, an element which is not loss admirable, though less prominent, than the serious.
Previous page
