The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-27 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

A Hero's Work. By Mrs. Duffus Hardy, author
of " A Casual Acquaintance." 3 vols. Hurst

and Blackett.

Since the publication of her former work, "A
Casual Acquaintance," Mrs. Duffus Hardy has
made great progress in the art of story-telling. " A
Hero's Work" is pleasantly written, and the story
is for the most part full of interest. We can-
not say that we admire the introduction
of such unnatural characters as Madame
Fontaine and her daughters. Madame Fon-
taine is singularly repulsive. The main inci-
dent of the story also, the unheroic " work" of the
" hero," is not.an agreeable episode. The moral
lesson might have been enforced with equal effect
without the introduction of an incident so re-
volting in its details as the story of the unfor-
tunate Adrienne. The sole object of this event
as it is described is of course to ' reveal
the utter selfishness of the " hero," as ho has not
even the excuse of passion to account for his
treacherous conduct. The heroes of the Crimea
have no cause to be complimented by the com-
panionship of Captain Archibald Dundas ! Not-
withstanding these grave errors which mar the
excellence of the work, there are agreeable cha-
racters and pleasantly-written chapters in Mrs.
Duffus Hardy's new work.

Stung to the Quick; a North Country Story. BY
Mrs. G. Linnaeus Banks. 3 vols. C. W. Wood.

Another sensational story We were beginning
to congratulate ourselves upon a little respite, but
again we find ourselves transported from the terra
firma of every-day life to that imaginary and
impossible region familiar to the writers and
abo (alas !) to the readers of sensational litera-
ture. In no region but that do we hear
of babies picked up in the snow like Rhoda
Wearbank, to devote their lives to the injury of
their benefactors. No where else do we read of a
young wife locked up in a secret chamber in her
own house by a favourite friend, while her hus-
band is persuaded that she has eloped in the dis-
guise of a sailor boy with a treacherous boa cap-
tain ! Those who delight iu such marvels will find
a rich treat in the record of Eva's imprisonment in
a padded room, which permits no outcry to escape,
with a trap-door stealthily lifted up in the
night for the kind " friend" to introduce
food, which food has to be surreptitiously
purloined at the expense of the character of dog
and cat. Nor is the escape of Eva less amazing
than the record of her imprisonment. Even more
astounding is Rhoda's revenge upon Lucy Askew,
who deserts her home and risks her reputation by
elopeiug with a foreign music-master, who proves to
be no other than Rhoda in disguise An agreeable
recollection of Mrs. Banks's former work, " God's
Providence House," makes us regret to find her pen
depicting a Rhoda Wearbank.

A very Simple Story; Being a Chronicle of tho
Thoughts and Feelings of a Child. By Florence
Montgomery. Illustrated by the Marchioness of

Queensberry and M. R.

Richard Bentley.

This is, indeed, a very simple, but exquisitely
pathetic little story, most tenderly told. The illus-
trations are singularly graceful, and two of these,
which contain all the pathos of the tale,
will appeal to the heart of every beholder. In
one we see a picture of little Maye, the
tiny heroine of the story, a darling little child of
five years old, standing barefoot in her little night-
dress, knocking at the closed door of her mother's
chamber. " Mother !" wails the little voice,
" mother ! it is Maye, only Maye, oh, dear
Mother ! let me in !" But no sound comes from the
room, no voice replies ; all is silence and darkness.
The door is locked, but the anxious little supplicant
will not be denied, and creeps round by the open
dressing-room, and in the next picture we see the little
loving child on the bed with clinging arms clasped
round the dead mother's neck. These two pictures,
as we have said, tell the whole story—a very
touching little tale it is, and one which will bring
tears to the eyes and tender feelings to the heart of
many a reader. The manner in which the little
history has been narrated by Florence Mont-
gomery is just as it should be. It is written with
the utmost simplicity, which imparts to it an inex-
pressible charm, and is suffused throughout with an
ineffable tenderness.

The Story of Papa's Wise Dogs. Told and MO"
trated by Himself. Routledge and Sons.

Papa and his wise dogs will be welcome at many
a Christmas fireside. The anecdotes recorded are
founded on fact, and Papa relates them in the most
natural and delightful manner. The " two dear
little girls" to whom the book is dedicated will find
many companions in their " appreciation and 100
of dog-nature," as exemplified in the histories of
Jock and Fan, and Bar and Mr. Nio.

Peter Parley's Annual. Darton and Co.

" Peter Parley's Annual for 1868" is of more than
ordinary excellence. Many of the pictures are
oloured, and some are very spirited, as for example
the group of shipwrecked boys waving a signal of
distress.

Lady Herbert of Lea, since her return from the
West Indies, has been staying with her family at Wilton
House, near Salisbury.
SMALL BIRDS IN WINTER.—We see the footprints
of the little robin in the snow, and where it lies deep the
long-eared hare betrays her hiding plac, by the deep ih-
dentments she makes in:the feathery flakes. The half-
starved fieldfares huddle together in the naked hedges for
warmth ; while the owl, rolling himself up like a ball in
his feathers, creeps as far as he can into the old hollow
tree to get out of the cold. That lively little fellow the
water-wagtail—the smallest of our birds that walk-4314Y
now be seen pecking about the spots of ground that AO
unfrozen in moist places, though what he finds to hod
upon there, unless it be loosened bits of grit and grit"
vel, it is difficult to ascertain. Many a shy bird, but
seldom seen at any other season, now draws near
to our habitations in search of food ; and sometimes:
when entering an outhouse, we are startled by the rush
of wings, as the pretty intruder escapes by the WO
doorway we are entering. We often wonder how, during
a long and severe frost, the birds contrive to live. That
many perish through cold and want of food is well knows
through the number that are picked up dead and
frozen, though a great number are eaten by the animals
that prey upon everything they can find. Many pick up
insects in a dormant state from out the stems of de-
cayed trees, old walls, and the thatched roofs of cot"
taxes and outhouses, and they also forage among furze'
bushes, the underneath portions of which, being dead, form
a warm shelter for such insects as the gnats, which may 1)(i
seen out in every gleam of sunshine. Wood pigeons (36t
the eyeshoots out of the tops of turnips and devour tile'
tenderest portion of winter greens. Larks and otbear
birds find a living in the autumn-sown corn-fields, en
make sad havoc among the seed. Other birds tear the
thatch off corn-stacks, and eat until they aro hardly 81'10
to fly. One thing we must consider, birds require less,
food during their short dark days than they dote
any other season of the year, as they are asleep
than double the time they pass in slumber in survaeri
nor when awake do they exert themselves so ranch.°
the wing as during the long days. It is an interestiu
fact, as showing the care of the great Creator for 11.1
creatures, that the berries of the mistletoe only riP)ll 0
spring, when hips and haws and the berries of holly
au
ivy have disappeared. Thus in a prolonged winter rusv;
birds are kept from starving by means of the mistleteroo_
which they do not feed on till about the end of Februsla
or early in March. The Engliehwornan's ponies
i Magazine.