Born to be a Lady : a Novel. By Katherine
Henderson. (Samuel Tinsley.)—We are always disposed to like a novel in one volume, and in this instance there is something to like beyond the trim and at- tractive exterior and the convenient size of Miss Henderson's book, to which she might have given a less clumsy title. In the first place, there is the pleasant fact that whatever portion of it is not written in good English is written in good Scotch, that genuine dialect which it is the unmeaning fashion to call "Boric," and of which we find lament- ably lam e imitations in most modern stories of Scottish households of the lower orders. Secondly, there is a readable story, well put together, and but for one absurd incident near the conclusion, life-like and natural. We do not think Jeanie Munro would have been so much superior to her mother and sisters merely through the moderate advan- tages of education which her biographer bestows upon the gardener's beautiful daughter ; but if we take her superiority for granted, the use she makes of it is natural and probable. The element of religious discnssion can hardly ever be introduced into a novel without offence against the laws of good-sense and good-taste, but in the present in- stance there is no such offence in its introduction. The Free Kirk and the new birth unto righteousness" are of the essence of the social system to which the personages of Miss Henderson's story belong, and she uses them effectively in describing the struggles of Jeanie 31arlay when she discovers her husband's want of principle. She is not so fortunate when she strays into the religions eccen- tricities of the "Perfectionists ;" she is vague about them ; they do not colour the character or the conversation of the man who - is supposed to display them. The grand and God-fearing old gar- dener, the father of the girl who is born to be a lady," is the best- drawn and most interesting character in the book. Jeanie inspires but a tepid liking, and the wicked sister-in-law is wooden and stagey. By the absurd expedient to which she resorts for bring- ing the estranged husband and wife together, when a natural one lies ready to her hand, Miss Henderson spoils her story. The young lady who carries off the popular preacher of the doctrines of the Per- fectionists, after the fashion of an Irish abduction, is as impossible as she is unpleasant. She would never have gone beyond the
postulant stage in that convenient convent into which lady-novelists cram the superfluity of naughtiness to be disposed of at the end of their books.
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