Thornycroft Hall. By Emma Jane Worboise. (Jackson, Walford, and Hodder.)—The
author has in this novelette, which is by no means a child's book, but suited to young ladies who are quite grown up and even coming out, produced out of somewhat faded materials a very fresh, agreeable story. The character of the heroine and its develop- ment are thoroughly well done, and carry the reader triumphantly through the book. So also Mr. and Mrs. Ward and their three daughters and the sketch of Aunt Isabella are very good, but, on the other hand, the hero is a stick. Alniost all lady novelists, however, spoil their books by their incidents. Mrs. Ward is a hard, uncharitable woman, who is very religious, has views on prophecy, and makes her family thoroughly miserable. This is as bad as the author likes, but is it reasonable to represent this woman as such a hypocrite as to have all this time in her possession a codicil to her father-in-law's will, twhich she has stolen and suppressed, and yet not so utterly bad but that she becomes quite an amiable character in her old age, simply because her daughters are not affectionate ? Why is it that in novels the people who steal wills never destroy them ? If, however, the framework of the story is clumsy, its details are probable and agreeable. Especially we like the picture of the Rev. Carus Wilson's school for the daughters of clergymen,—the useful institution of which Jane Eyre fell foul. So differently are different types of character affected by a given educational system !
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