The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-13 00:00:00

II ER MAJESTY.

OSBORNE, Feb. 12.
The Queen drove out yesterday afternoon, ac-
companied by Princess Louise, and attended by
the Duchess of Athole.

Her Majesty went out this morning, accompanied
by Princess Beatrice..

ller Royal Highness the Princess of Wales
drove out yesterday.

LITERA TITRE.

Mss Kavanagh's New Novel.

Dora. By Julia Kavanagh. Three Vols. Hurst

and Blackett.

A charming story most charmingly written, full
of incidents and full of character. " Dora" is in
many respects the happiest effusion of Julia
Kavanagh's imagination—always excepting her
exquisite tale of " Madeleine." Although the scene
of her new novel occasionally at critical intervals
carries the reader, now to Paris, now to London, it
for the most part lies in Ireland and in provincial
France—in the neighbourhood of Dublin and in the
neighbourhood of Rouen. It is only when the heroine
arrives first of all at Rouen that the interest of the
plot can be said to commence in earnest. Not but
what the opening of the narrative has a quiet charm
of its own ; namely, when Dora is first revealed to
us as the central figure of the little home group,
in which her companions and associates are her
mother, her brother, her aunt, and her cousin.
Dora's mother—that dear little widowed French
woman, whose relief, in moments of ennui, is to
play a patience with the cards, chiefly the patience
of Louis XVIII. Dora's aunt—altogether the
most original creation in the book—that dull, sullen,
short, square-built, uncomely Mrs. Luan, who, be-
ginning with being next door to an idiot, and deve-
loping afterwards into a pitiless conspirator, ends
by becoming a madwoman afflicted with
the deadly passion of homicidal mania. The con-
trast of these two sisters-in-law—Mrs. Courtenay
with her " purring," and Mrs. Luan with her
" buzzing "—is very cleverly delineated : Mrs.
Luan, by the way, having a sort of a resemblance to
that eccentric old lady " Mr. F.'s Aunt," known to
all the readers of " Little Dorrit," as the charge of
Flora Casby and the terror of Arthur Clenam.
The resemblance here hinted at is but very subtle in
its way, for Mrs. Luan is thoroug lily original—but, for
such as it is, it will he recognised by the discerning,
and among others not the least readily by Miss
Kavanagh herself, where Dora's Aunt (like Mr.
F's. Aunt) interrupts the most amicable conversa-
tions with the most unexpected, and sometimes, to
all appearance, the most irrelevant observations.
these observations of her's, moreover, being couched
in terms the most aggressive, yet, at the same time,
the most unprovoked. It is noticeable even in the
habit she (Mrs. Luau) has of twitching her cap off
and throwing it from her—once on to the top of Mr.
Ryan's head —with the exclamation in regard to
her own of " 0 my head's so hot !" Not that Mr.
F.'s Aunt had any similar trick of her own—but
that this whimsical habit of Dora's Aunt is just
what we might have expected to have found related
of the other old oddity. Dora's brother, already
alluded too, poor Paul Courtenay, soon enough
disappears from the scene, dying off as he does
very prematurely. There is a pathetic remem-
brance of him nevertheless thoughout the whole of
the remainder of the narrative—particularly in
connection with his failure in competing for the
estate of Deelah by compiling a catalogue of the
ceramic collection of its owner, Mr. Courtenay, and
in connection also with his having been jilted (on
his failure in that competition) by the pretty, heart-
less, brainless coquette Florence, to whom he,
poor fellow, was previously to have been mar-
ried. It is the successful rival of Paul Courte-
nay, who is the hero of this charming story,
KUV 4V ',ova net L.,- Misadven-
tures. Until we have some time been located at
Rouen in company with Dora herself, her aunt,
Mrs. Lean, and her mother, Mrs. Courtenay, we
have only once or twice heard of him, and even then
merely incidentally. He, too, as a character, is
thoroughly and completely original—and yet he, too,
has in a few particulars a subtle resemblance to
another character well known in modern fiction.
We mean where, as Doctor Richard, he recalls to
our recollection, time and again, Charlotte Bronte's
Monsieur Paul Emanuel, the teacher of " Villette."
Dora herself, bright, grey-eyed, brown-golden
haired, good, gifted, loveable Dora Courtenay is the
" best beautiful" of all the charming delineations in
this delightful and at intervals enthralling narrative.
'The gradual growing or dawning (quite uncon-
sciously to herself at first) of her tender love for Doctor
Richard, is portrayed with admirable grace by
Miss Kavanagh. The revelation of his identity by
Doctor Richard when Dora (with her aunt and
mother) first makes acquaintance with the
picturesque beauties of Les Roches, may be
said to inaugurate the real passion and
glamour of the plot. Surprise after sur-
prise comes thick and fast then upon poor
love-lorn Dora. Doctor Richard is no longer
Doctor Richard. The needy, thrifty, lonely stu-
dent proves to be a wealthy country gentleman—a
landed proprietor—the owner of Deelah—having a
long lease of Les Roches as his French residence.
Instead of being heart-whole—as Dora had sup-
posed him to be—he turns out to be a
widower with a little daughter. And not
only to be a widower, but a widower who is be-
trothed to one he hopes soon to make his second
wife. And she no other than Florence, who, after
jilting Paul, has survived the husband she had
married in his place, and is now about to dispose
herself on Paul's successful competitor for Deelah
—the owner now of Deelah, Doctor Richard
now no longer, but Mr. Richard Templemore, of
Deelah and of Les Roches. How the rest of the
narrative is worked out we shall not here spoil the
attraction of Miss Kavanagh's new story by relat-
ing. It is, we repeat, full of surprises. Hope and
despair—joy the most intense and grief the most
profound— alternate with one another through a
series of extraordinary vicissitudes. Besides the
principal persons, already either particu-
larised or merely hinted at among the
latter being Dora's cousin, John Luan, who is in
love with her, in his dull, stupid way, all through
the book, without having his love (except in an
irritatingly cousinly manner) reciprocated by her
from first to last—besides the dramatis persona
already specified, several other individuals are
introduced to us at Rouen and at Lea
Roches, whom, when we close the book,
we hold still in pleasant remembrance. Among
these Madame Bertrand, the old landlady, and
Monsieur Menard, the keeper of the bric-a-brac
shop, little Eva, Dora's pupil at first and afterwards
her step-daughter, with others unnecessary here to
enumerate. The only oversight that occurs to our
recollection, on the general clearing up of the
difficulties and entanglements of the plot—and it
is one that seems to have slipped altogether
from the remembrance of Miss Kavanagh
--is, as to what ever became of Fanny
and of the letter left in her charge filled with the
returned bank-notes. Barring this—and it is in
itself the merest trifle—the story, as a story, is com-
pleteoo
fnly
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andtale itwworthys t
eeableusa
to sth e authoress of
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and of Madeleine."
h a lai u'

The Marquis of Waterford has been suffering
from very serious illness. His lordship, on the 4th just'
while out hunting with his hounds at Curraghmore, vra°
thrown from his horse, and bustained some severe coutu"
sions, having cut his face and received a severe shaking'
On his return to town, on Friday last, he was taken sert-
ously ill from inflammation of the bowels. For some houro
he was in a very precarious state, but by judicious mediegl
treatment he is in a fair way of recovery. It will afford
his lordship's numerous friends pleasure to hear that Yes-
terday he was pronounced by kis medical attendants to be
out of danger.