The Queen of the Regiment. By Katharine King. (Hurst and
Blackett.) —This is a charming, fresh, cheery, innocent novel,—evidently the work of an unpractised writer, testing her ability, feeling that it is in her to write stories of life, adventure, and feeling, and bringing to the task plenty of youthful energy and spirits. Its faults are the faults of inexperience, a little want of proportion, and occasional crudeness, but its merits are rare and welcome. The writer deals with military men and military life, and she is neither coarse, slangy, nor vulgar. Her young officers are neither bellies nor blackguards, neither rends nor fops. She deals with sporting men and sporting life, and yet she is not horsey' or doggey,' but thoroughly feminine always. The gleefulness, the ease, the heartiness of her style cannot fail to please. And wherever one gets a glimpse of herself, which is not often, she is a straightforward narrator ; there is a taintless purity and freshness of thought about her, not in the least sentimental, but original and brave. Her heroine the Queen of the Regiment is a very captivating girl, and we do not wonder at the loyalty of her subjects, but neither do we admire her choice. The man whom she rejects, and who sacrifices him- self for her (a remarkably well devised catastrophe), is a far finer fellow than the conquering hero, and though the lovers are happily united at last, and all must therefore be said to end well, Miss King's readers will feel more sorry for Houston than rejoiced for Anstrather. We suspect those are also her own sentiments. If this is a first novel, it is of un- usual promise.
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