THE HANDSOME BRA.NDONS.*
Tins is a really excellent piece of work. The author's name
is well known in literature, but we do not remember to have seen it before in connection with the class of "Gift-Books."
She certainly writes with the freshness and force of one who has found a new and congenial task. Veteran exponents of the art of writing books for boys and girls will have to do their best to hold their own.
Miss Katharine Tynan constructs her story on lines which Miss C. M. Yonge, among others, has used with success. She takes a family of fairly large dimensions—in this there are three sons and six daughters—and tells the tale of their fortunes. The sons are somewhat vaguely outlined. The eldest gets into trouble, we do not exactly know
how or why, and comes into the story only for a short time, and then rather for his sisters' sake than for his own. The other two are not much more than perscntx mks, or shall we say Virgil's "fortisque Gyas fortisque Cloanthus " It is on the daughters that our author, writing, as she says, for girls, naturally expends her strength. We should explain that the "handsome Brandons" are an Irish family of old descent, reduced by various causes not infre- quent in Ireland, not to speak of the not very intelligible villainy of a neighbour, to a very close poverty. The eldest of the daughters, Aline, " mothers " the family. The picture we have of her is one of uncommon sweetness; we see, realised with more than usual power, the wise and loving counsellor, with a trouble of her own which she hides and half forgets in her care for others. The others have each her own love-story,
stories pleasingly varied, but all of the love-at-first-sight variety. It must be owned that the romantic element is strongly developed, not so much in the tale of the Brandon sisters and their lovers as in that of the hereditary enemy of their race.
Sir Rupert de Lacy is a figure from melodrama rather than from life. The climax of unreality is reached in the final
catastrophe, itself skilfully managed by the intervention of a real Irish occurrence, a moving bog. Sir Rupert has become rich by robbery and wrong, and the Brandons, one of whom marries his heir, will have nothing to do with his wealth. Accordingly it disappears. "With Castle Angry went all Sir Rupert's gold, the immense price which he had received long ago from the English company for the mines of which he had robbed the Brandons." But wicked Baronets in real life do not keep " immense " sums of money in gold. On the other hand, General McNeill, his sister Lucy, with her vegetarian craze, Lady O'Brien, Oona, and others whom we might mention, are as real as they are delightful.
But the literary quality of Miss Katharine Tynan's work is its chief distinction. Well written throughout, it rises frequently into excellence. Here is an effective contrast of humour and pathos. One of the sisters is widowed after two years of happy marriage, and afraid to impose upon the impoverished home another burden, has made her sisters believe that she has been left with sufficient means. At last one of them discovers the truth, finding her in the dingy suburb where she has made her home :— '. Freda,' I said impulsively, 'have you ever had an offer of marriage in these years of your wanderings ? '—' An embarrass- ment, Hilda. My suitors have ranged in age from sixteen to sixty—nay, seventy-flve—and in eligibility from the ownership of a pocket-knife and three white mice to the ownership of an iron-foundry and a steam-yacht.'—' And you never met any one you could say yes to ? ' Freda's merry face changed all at once, and a wounded red flew into her soft, pale cheeks. You are only a child, Hilda,' she said softly, and so I forgive you.'—' Oh, Freda,' I cried, 'I didn't think you'd care so much.'—' I am Jim's wife,' she answered, as well as Jim's widow !' "
We must say a word on behalf of the much-maligned bloodhound. He tracks a fugitive, but does not hurt him.
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