Juliet's Guardian. By Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron. 3 vols. (Ghetto
and Windus.)—Whatever interest this story possesses does not lie in that part which is more properly described by the title. We all know by this time what will be the course of events, when a guardian, whose hair is, indeed, slightly tinged with grey, but who is yet in the full vigour of life, comes to fulfil his duties for a ward who is just about to pass out of her teens,—mutual interest; love, first unconscious, then conscious, then acknowledged; misunderstandings, and finally the setting all things right. Such is the course of events which we expect and are sure, variations allowed for, to find. Certain variations we have in this instance,—a stepmother anxious to secure for herself the love which she grudges to the heroine, and the device, which really ought to be forbidden to novelists, of intercepted letters. But the story is not agreeable or interesting. A much better part of the book is the picture of the old hunting squire and his household. The life and death of Georgie Travers are told with much pathos, and the story of her younger sister, Flora, is skilfully managed, and this though it is a difficult subject, for sympathy is not easily commanded when we are first called to witness the sorrows of a heart-broken lover, and then bidden to rejoice when he consoles himself.
Previous page
