Cruel Constancy : a Novel. By Katharine King. (Samuel Tinsley.)—
When we observe a lady novelist making steady progress and profiting by the remarks of her critics to cultivate the qualities and avoid the defects which they have descried in her first efforts, we watch her career with interest and expectation, and are happy to put its steps in advance on record. Miss Katharine King is among the small number of novel- ists who,do not disdain advice. Her present work is a much better novel than "Lost for Gold," upon which it is a greater improvement than Lest for Gold" was upon the "Queen of the Regiment." It depends for its interest less upon events, and more upon the delineation of character. The plot is very original, and the atmosphere of the story is healthy, full of breezy, open-air life, of cheerfulness, and harmless fun. We do not know another lady novelist who can write about horses and dogs, hauling-fields and barrack-rooms, without being either coarse or ridiculous, or both, which is, indeed, most common. But it is inartistic to arrest and retard the catastrophe of the story by the details of a pig- sticking party. The accident is indispensable, it is true, but ought to have been incidental. Miss King has plenty of material, the niceties of construction will come, and she has improved in that art immensely.
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