CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
The Red Grange. By Mrs. Mogsworth. (Methuen and Co.)— We have had the pleasure of noticing the stories which Mrs. Molesworth is accustomed to give us at this season for now many years. There has been not a little change in them, and a change not altogether for the better. They show as much literary power as ever, but they are now, sometimes at least, not all suited for the young. We should certainly hesitate before we put this tale into the hands of an excitable or imaginative girl. The most notable thing in the plot is something that may be called super- naturaL The heroine dreams a dream which foreshadows in a very curious way the course of her future life, showing her the two people who were to be respectively the bane and the blessing of it. A very mysterious portrait, and what may almost be called a reincarnation of the remote ancestor whom it repre- sents, are introduced ; and as if this were not enough, we have a revenant, in the shape of the old man whose will has been lost or destroyed. All this is very well told; some of the characters are admirably drawn, especially Veronica Nountjoy and her uncle,
though perhaps Spencer is too atrociously bad, and Lion too good. A reader who has got past the age of dreaming and fearing ghosts, would have no fault to find with The Red Grange, but there are some who might snatch from it an only too fearful joy.
Previous page
