9 DECEMBER 1893, Page 23

Home, Sweet Home. By the Rev. R. G. Somas, B.A.

(Religious Tract Society.)—Here, with a rather catchpenny title, we have a story which is the reverse of catchpenny. It is a careful study of still-life and of two families, the Hunters and the Holdsvrorths. The true heroine is Margaret Holdsworth, a pretty, ambitious girl, with a capricious and undisciplined nature, who for a time leaves the home of her excellent parents ; but, after influenza, desertion by selfish friends, governessing, and privation, returns as the prodigal daughter to the arms of her father, and to Black, the " strong " schoolmaster with an inventive genius, who once saved her from drowning, and who waits for her with exemplary patience. Then there is a secondary plot in the shape of the love- story of the artistic Lena Hunter and Jack Holdsworth, who has to give up his medical career in Edinburgh that he may help his family out of trouble. It does not run smoothly for a time, because Lena, without cause, believes her father to have been something very like a swindler. All ends happily, and in a couple of marriages. The characters, without exception, are well drawn, Old Abraham Holdsworth, in particular, is a de- lightful example of high—though ostensibly humble—Yorkshire character.