Uncle Steve's Locker. By "Brenda." (J. F. Shaw and Co.)—
"Brenda," as usual, lays the opening of her story in the East- End, and we recognise instantly the same power of sympathy and exquisite photographic accuracy of detail which distinguished " Froggy's Little Brother." So vivid and instinct with life are the aged brother and sister, that we call to our minds instantly the tall figure of proud old Uncle Steve, with his battered silk hat, and Aunt Betty, with her silvery hair, sitting in her beloved Chippendale chair. They are indeed a dear old couple, and "Brenda" has never drawn two more charming pen-and-ink portraits, or with such delicate finish. The " Locker " does not occur till near the end of the tale, and is the only stirring or romantic incident in the story ; though the whole book, with its homeliness of detail and touches of grim poverty, has an air of sad and pathetic romance. But if less dramatic than many of "Brenda's" other stories, there are many wonderful touches, amusing, pic- turesque, and saddening, which charm the reader with their beauty and aptness. One of the most skilful and finest bits of writing in the whole book is the scene in the workhouse. What a picture it makes,—the old women quarrelling and struggling for the fire and the single newspaper ! It is drawn and painted with a quiet power and humour, yet without roughness, that Dickens might have envied, and with a pathos, painful without being savage, that he seldom if ever reached. The impression the reader will probably receive from Uncle Steve's Locker is that of a series of master- pictures, small, beautifully finished, and instinct with a marvellous insight into the habits of the honourably poor, and a loving sym- pathy with their pride and patient endurance of untold sufferings and hardships. If, indeed, it cannot surpass " Froggy's Little Brother" and "A Saturday Bairn" in its power to move us, as a. work of art it must be classed above them. And we cannot help thinking that children will rarely find a more delightful house than the "wonderful house," or a nicer story to read or talk about than Uncle Steve's Locker.
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