7 JANUARY 1888, Page 40

The Shepherd's Darling. By "Brenda." (J. F. Shaw.)—This is a

sufficiently readable, some may think it even an exciting story; but it has for us a certain aspect of unreality. Bonnie, the heroine, is induced to leave her home by a certain unprincipled Lallie Spans. They go abroad with a travelling show, for Bonnie's ambition is to act. What happens to the adventurers we shall not say; but surely the incident of the distorting looking-glass, which makes the child fancy that she is disfigured for life, is a little unlikely. No one cou'd be deceived by the regular grotesqueness of a distorted image. There is BOMB pathos in The Shepherd's Darling, and the intention of the story is admirable.