Maims o' the Corner. By M. E. Francis. (Harper and
Brothers.)—Mrs. Francis Blundell, who prefers to be known by the name under which she wrote "In a North-Country Village," shows wisdom in preferring the" short and simple annals of the poor" to more ambitious fiction, and in not leaving Thornleigh, which she knows and loves so well. Her new story may be described as an elongated " study " in Thornleigh. The heroine is a girl who has been taken from the workhouse and brought up by a Mrs. Prescott. She strikes up an acquaintance with Joe Beattie, a tall, ungainly lad, who is almost as much of a waif as herself, and who is generally known as "Newton's Joe" because he is in the employ of a leading farmer in the place of the name of Newton. For a time Malmo has what boys would style "hard lines," is badly treated by Mrs. Newton, and after getting engaged to Will, the son of her mistress, is thrown over by him because he wishes to please his mother and to make a good match. Finally she and Joe marry. So love comes to her. But so does poverty. Indeed it is only at the close of the story, when they are literally at death's door through starvation, that they have "a streak of luck," and that, thanks to the strength of public opinion in Thornleigh, headed by the Canon—who, by the way, is rather late in appearing on the scene—a reasonable ehance of very modest happiness is allowed to her. The story is a pathetic idyll, but it is most skilfully told, indeed, remorselessly told so far as dialect is concerned. Much humour is exhibited in the sketches of character, notably of Mrs. Kelly, the poetess.
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