THE LILAC SUNBONNET.* IT is really very hard to review

a book like this of Mr. Crockett's. One takes it up determined to be before all things a conscientious and discriminating critic, but insen- sibly all thought of criticism melts away from the mind like morning mists before the strengthening sunlight, and one reads on and on simply for the pure pleasure of doing so. The book sets forth no theory of life, inculcates no new moralities, nor does it attempt in any way to put a strain on our intellectual faculties, which, in these days of Heavenly Twins, Yellow Asters, and Green Carnations, is, in itself, a great recommendation. Yet for all that, we venture to say that it will long survive them, though for the moment it has not created such a stir as they did on their first appearance. Whatever may be said of their merits, it cannot be claimed that they are works of art ; and, moreover, they deal with views and questions of society peculiar to this generation, which will in all probability entirely cease to interest the generation now growing up. This little idyl, on the other hand, dealing with the ever universal subject of pure and "true love, and fearlessness and faith unfeigned," and of how this brought with it the hope of forgiveness to one bowed beneath the conscious- ness of an old and nnforgiven sin, may undoubtedly claim to be a genuine work of art,—if not a very pro- found one. Not that the deeper notes of tragedy and pathos are wanting in it either. After so much, both in literature and on the stage, of men and women with dark pasts and dreary futures, it is very pleasant to be called upon to follow such a course of true love as that of Winsome Charteris and Ralph Peden, the young probationer of the Marrow Kirk, who "had been trained by his father to think more of a professor's opinion on his Hebrew version than of a woman's opinion whatever on any subject ; " and though "he had been told that woman was an indispensable part of the economy of Providence" had come to the conclusion that "she could not have been created when God looked on all that he had made and found it very good," "Very good," in spite of his previous theories, Ralph speedily finds Winsome, who is quite worthy of her name. She is, besides, a clever practical young woman of affairs, and manages the farm that belongs to her grand-parents with signal success, at the same time looking after the old people with filial tenderness and care. Here is a picture of them as they sit together day after day :— " Within the shadowed ben '-room of Craig Ronald all the morning, an oddly assorted pair of old people had been sitting— as indeed every morning they sat, one busily reading and often looking up to talk ; while the other, the master of the house him- self, sat silent, a majestic and altogether pathetic figure, looking solemnly out with wide-open, dreamy eyes, waking to the actual world of speech and purposeful life only at rare intervals."

It is not difficult to guess from whom Winsome Charteris inherits her charm. It is from the old grandmother with the snowy folds of lawn about her throat and breast, looking in her venerable and sweet old age like a portrait of Raeburn's, while "the twinkle in her brown eyes alone told of the force- ful and restless spirit that was imprisoned within," so wise and gay withal, and so ready with the rippling silver laughter so deliciously provocative to those who heard it, and a hand so white and shapely that it might have been envied by the Lady Elizabeth Greatorix of the Big House, who used to lend her those marvellous stories of the Great Unknown. It was only when kept waiting for her third volume that the old lady ever got seriously vexed. The farm-life with its doings weaves itself in and out of the story, and could only have been described by one intimately acquainted with its smallest details, who had studied carefully the ways of the creatures he describes. Here is an account of the cows coming from pasture to be milked :— " Down the brae-face from the green meadowlets that fringed the moor came the long procession of cows. Swinging a little from aide to side, they came—black Galloways, and the red and white breed of Ayrshire in single file—their wavering piebald lino following the intricacies of the path. Each full-fed, heavy- uddered mother of the herd came marching full matronly with

• stately tread, blowing flower-perfumed breath from dewy nostrils. The older and staider animals —Marly, and Dumple, and Fleeky —came stolidly homeward, their heads swinging low, absorbed in meditative digestion, and soberly retasting the sweetly succulent grass of the hollows, and the crisper and tastier acidity of the

• The Lilac Sunbohnet, By B. rt. Crockett, London: T, Fisher Unwia.

sorrel-mixed herbage of the knolls. Behind them came Spotty and Speckly, young and frisky matrons of but a year's standing, who yet knew no better than to run with futile head at Roger, and so encourage that short haired and tempered collie to snap at their heels."

A strain of genuine and kindly humour runs through the book, though we must confess that, like much Scotch humour, when it becomes really conscious of itself, it is apt to grow somewhat strained and stilted, which is frequently the case with Saunders Mowdiewort and his mother, and even at times with the half-witted Jock Gordon. This charge cannot be brought against Andra, the bare-legged boy of twelve, who is always delightful whenever he comes upon the scene. Here, however, is a scene in which the humour is as natural and unforced as could be wished :— "When he got to Craig Ronald, the girls were in the byre at the milking, and at every cow's tail there stood a young man, rompish Ebb e Farrish at that at which Jess was milking, and quiet Jock Forrest at Meg's. Ebie was joking and keeping up a fire of running comment with Jess, whose dark-browed gipsy face and blue-black wisps of hair were set sideways towards him, Her cheek was pressed upon Lucky's side, and she sent the warm white milk from her nimble fingers, with a pleasant musical hissing

sound against the sides of the milking-pail The byre was fragant with the sweet breath of kine The conversation

in the byre proceeded somewhat in this way : Jess was milking her last cow, with her head looking sideways at Ebie, who stood plaiting Marly's tail in a new-fangled faehion he had brought from the low end of the parish, and which was just making its way among young men of taste I never really likit a lass afore, Jess, ye may be].ieve, for I waana a lad toxin after them. But whenever I caw' to Craig Ronald I saw that I was dune for.'— 'Stan' back, ye muckle slabber!' said Jess, suddenly and emphati- cally, in a voice that could have been heard a hundred yards away. Speckly was pushing sideways against her as if to crowd her off her stool. Say ye sae, Ebie,' she added, as if she had not previously spoken, in the low even voice in which she had con- versed with him from the first, and which could be heard by Ebb e alone.' '1 hae seen, maybes, bonnier faces, as ye micht say—'—' Hata aff wi' ye there; mind, whaur yer ye muckle senseless newt!' said Jeas to her Ayrshire Hornie, who had been treading on her toes.—' As I was sayin'' Jess, I hae seen—'—' Can ye no unnerstan', ye senseless lump?' cried Jess, warningly ; I'll knock the held aff ye, gin ye dinna drap it !'—She was still speaking to Hornie, of course.'

Mr. Crockett's descriptions of scenery are very real, and the effects of early morning, high noon, and evening are touched with the hand of a lover, but here and there they are somewhat spoilt by suggesting too much. the artist's colour-box, such a phrase as the following rather calling to mind the directions of the drawing-master to an outdoor sketching-class :— "The indigo grey of the sky was receding, and tinging towards the east with an imperceptibly graded lavender which merged behind the long shaggy outline of the pine ridge into a wash of pale lemon yellow."

A small thing, after all, to take exception to ; but it strikes a jarring note in language that is for the most part har- monious and well balanced, and chosen with a true ear and delicate sense of feeling. We wish we had space to quote the whole of the song of the thrush that sings to Winsome as she sits dreaming of her love in the early dawn, beginning thus "There—there—there—(so he sang), Can't you see, can't you see, can't you see it P

• Love is the secret, the secret ! Could you but know it, did you but show it !

Hear me ! hear me I hear me I Down in the forest I loved her ! "

Where the clear and reiterated note of the bird is exactly caught and reproduced. We have rarely come across such pretty love-making. Indeed, we have heard of the book being recommended to a young man as a perfect lesson in that art,—the lady who did so, adding as she took a meditative and retrospective glance back along the years, " Ah, if any one had ever wooed me so prettily, I should not be a spinster to-day."

The Lilac Sunbonnet is once again the story of Romeo and Juliet enacted without its tragedy, and the "parent's strife" is " buriea " not through the death of the hapless lovers, but through the triumph of the fearless faith of their true love, the scene of which is laid, not in fair Verona, but among the breezy Galloway Mountains, glowing in purple heather and musical with the sounds of streams and birds.

We will end, though it seems hardly fair, except that it illustrates Mr. Crockett's power of pathos, with the reconcilia- tion of the parents :— "But when the church was empty, and all gone home, in the little vestry two men sat together, and the door was shut. Between them they held a miniature, the picture of a girl with

flush of rose on her cheek and a laughing light in her eyes. There was silence, but for a quick catch in the stronger man's breathing which sounded like a sob. Gilbert Peden, who had only lost and never won, and Allan Welsh, who had both won And lost, were forever at one. There was silence between them, being both of them aged men, as they looked with eyes of death- less love at the picture which spoke to them of the love of other years."

It is well to have set before us in these days this other brighter, purer side of life and love, as true and quite as common, as the side to which just now we are being treated ad nauseam.