For the Major. By Constance Fennimore Woolson. (Sampson Low and
Co.)—Mrs. Woolson is already favourably known to English reader by her clever and pleasing though rather prolix story called Anne, a work which reveals a tree sense of humour and an elevated and thoughtful mind. The present slighter story is also attractive, and there is much pathos in the Major's declining state, and in the devotion of his daughter and his second wife. We must, however, decline to believe that any major in real life could be deluded into the belief that a woman over thirty-five was an ingenuous charmer of twenty-three, and continue serenely to cherish the belief during many years of matrimony. The sketches of American life and character in a remote village in the south are quaint, interesting, and read life-like; and the whole slender edifice of the story, reminding us of the paper houses of Japan, holds well together.
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