Aunt Deborah's Whim. By Mary E. Shipley. 3 vols. (Samuel
Tinsley.)—Aunt Deborah's whim is to adopt an orphan girl, whom chance has thrown in her way. She has herself been an orphan, the unhappy charge of selfish relatives. The memory of her own loveless childhood makes her determine to surround with love the little creature of whom she has taken charge, but she has an ungracious nature to work upon, and the warmth of her love dovelopes a growth of wilfulness and temper which bids fair to choke any seed of good that there might have been. The situation thus developed has a certain interest. The difficulty is for the author to make her readers care about the very dis- agreeable young woman who repays Aunt Deborah's care with such base ingratitude. We naturally hear a good deal about her, but she is really almost beyond bearing. The early part of her independent career, the story of the position which she makes for herself by sheer force of will in the school to Which her good-fortune takes her, is readable enough. After this we care less about her. She is really not worth reading about, though her character is naturally and distinctly drawn. One cannot help thinking that it would have been a good thing if the familiar railway accident had been called in early in the novel, to dispose of her.
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