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In the shape of a short "domestic tale," as he calls it, Mr. Westland Marston, the author of The Patrician's Daughter, has produced at the Lyceum a work of higher literary pretension than is usually to be found within the compass of a single act. Reuben Holt, a rugged though well-born specimen of rural singleheartedness, has staked his whole hap- piness on the return of 4ais betrothed, Lilian Trevor, from Madeira. Dreadful, therefore, is his mortification when this long-expected return is immediately followed by the disclosure that Lilian has bestowed her affections on a well-looking young man, a surgeon by profession, who has saved her life, and has been her companion on her homeward voyage. The piece is named A Ha-d Struggle ; and it is at this point of the story that the mental contest begins to which the title refers. Reuben's first impulse is to attack his eival with a horsewhip; but the commu- nication of the fact that he is Lilian's preserver cheeks him in his rash purpose, and when the state of I.ilian's heart is ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt, he perceives that the only course consistent with her happiness is to give her up. After a very "hard struggle" indeed, he acts upon the conclusion at which he has arrived, and having mastered a stubborn passion, hopes to console himself by lopping down sturdy trees in some country where back-woods abound. But Lilian's father has a little orphan granddaughter, named Amy, who is a favourite playmate with ' Reuben. "Will you leave your little pet ? " criee Amy. "No," quoth Reuben ; and he makes up his mind to accept the childish affection of Amy as a sort of compensation for the bat love of Lilian. Whether a gentleman of ardent temperament -would be satisfied with this sort of equivalent may be reasonably doubted ; but Mr. Marston's theory of' com- pensation brings a pretty little story to a very innocent conclusion, and even the sceptical may be silenced with the hint that the little girl with fair ringlets may in due time grow big enough to become Mrs. Holt. • Let us not, however, smile too much at the dainty manner in which the lull of a mental tempest is depicted. Mr. Marston, in exhibiting the progress of a moral ordeal, has displayed much poetical and delicate feel- ing; and Mr. Dillon goes through the crticible with a great deal of natural pathos. • - -
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