11 MAY 1872, Page 23

The Judge's Sons. By Mrs. E. D. Kendall. (Tegg.)—This is

a good little story, written with much liveliness and sound sense, which would

have been better, in our judgment, if the " total- abstinence " moral which is insinuated had been left oat. There is a walnut sideboard in the story which appears at the beginning with a reasonable garniture of decanters in it, and which, it is hinted, has no little to do with the trouble which overtakes the judge and his sons. At all events, it appears cleansed at the end of the story with "the liquor vanished from it, and in its place epergnes and vases filled with flowers." Our impres- sion is that the black sheep would have been black, liquor or no liquor. Why else does Mrs. Kendall call her tale "A Story of Wheat and Tares ?"