There had been no reconciliation. Frances is alone with her husband.

"The little space of the apartment that was not taken up with the bed and stove and other furniture was scarcely more than large enough to receive its unusual holding,-the silent form that lay stretched on its bier.

She sat alone. It was all silence, dead silence,-except for the occasional rattle of a wagon on the pavement outside. Not even a sob broke the stillness of the interior. She sat there, in the same paralysis of her emotional faculties that had held her since her husband's last breath. Not a tear had dimmed her eye. She had gone about her usual household offices, and these special ones that death had brought, with the carefulest womanly attention. Her power of emotion seemed to be suspended.

She was sitting now, on an ottoman, looking vacantly before her, her head leaning on her hand,-in an attitude of one taking a momentary rest. Yet she had been sitting thus for an hour. She did not know it.

There came a knock at the door. In the hush it sounded loud, and startled her. She arose. The door opened, and Uncle Luther stepped with bared head across the threshold.

She looked at him a moment. Then, as quick as thought, she dashed in between him and the lifeless form, and stood there facing him, with her eyes flashing fire, her fingers clinched, and her chest heaving,-as if she would have defended the form on the pall against him; a tigress could not have been fiercer before her young.

Luther stood regarding her,—a look of utter helplessness on his strong face. So they remained, moment after moment, moment after moment; the excitement of the woman subsiding little by little, little by little. At last she could speak. Still standing defiant, she said hoarsely, "He is dead, sir."

The old gentleman's lips moved. "Frances! Frances !" he cried, in in a broken tone of anguish; and he advanced with a hasty, impulsive movement, and clasped the desolate woman in his arms in a passionate embrace; and there, his head bowed down over hers, he cried, audibly and convulsively, like a child,-tears of remorse and pity over one whom he had been harsh to, over one whom the world, nay Death, had come in and struck after he had struck her, and harder than he had; as if his initial blow had invited attack upon her from every hostile force; as if he had led the way, he, the strong man!-and yet he had loved her all the time. Oh, the bitter sorrow! She clung tightly to him. They said not a word."

The real interest of the story of course centers in the character of Frances. She is eighteen, when first introduced to the reader-an orphan, with ample means to live a comfortable and conventional life. This she will not do. She is restless,

aspiring, independent, coquettish, and human. She does not take her life as it comes but must do something to form it. Her energy first finds vent in a harmless meeting with Archie Hiller-a young teacher at Marshton. By gradual stages she ventures to assume control of Archie's destiny. Perceiving his amiability, and neglecting to take into account his superficiality, she learns to love him. Her uncle has Archie removed from his school, and by opposition forces Frances to action. She refuses to forego her lover; she will not have the reflection cast upon him that he is living on her fortune. And quietly defying her uncle, she marries Archie and determines to work out with him their mutual success. Together they go to New York and Archie attempts to get on as a lawyer's clerk. His struggles, his careless good humor, his miserable success are told most picturesquely. And Frances' devoted strivings to increase the mutual income by sewing, are pathetically related. At last, toiling on and yet wanting work, she is forced to pawn and sell some of her belongings.

Suddenly, while affairs are at their worst, Archie dies. Her uncle comes, and the scene already quoted takes place.

Again we have Frances back at Marshton.

"A year ago the neighborhood of Ebenezer Green's mill was a blithe spot. Now she can lean but for an instant over the rail of the bridge, and a tear drops down into the brook. The birch weaves back and forth under the dam just as it did a year ago;-it is a senseless thing; it is not concerned with what happens in the heart-world. Here is the stile; laughter and daring gave it life a year ago; but all that is past. The wild-rose bushes are in bloom again, and the roses ready to be picked; but who shall pick them? Farther down the road, below the bridge, where they sat of a forenoon a year ago, there are the same boulders. For aught any one knows, it may be the same small bird that goes hopping about the apple-boughs overhead; but there is nothing for him to hear there. The voices came and spoke and went; and that is ended. What of it? These stillnesses, these vacancies, are everywhere in Nature; they are her heart. She whispers to us all, not what is, but what might be. Let her dry your eyes as she tells you there is but a common lot,-this kind sister of ours.

Next came peace,-the peace of quiescence; peace reflected from the summer meadows, from the sleeping rocks; speaking softly in the field sounds, the tiny brook, and the insects.

Then, at last, the calm spirit lifted up itself and looked about, and saw all things living again. The sky and its clouds are not a dream.

The grass is bowing under the wind. The ants are busy carrying their burden. The cattle are lowing in the next field. The world is alive, after all. She is in it; what shall she do?"

What she finally does is to enter a convent located near Marshton. She engages her mind with the active charity work of the convent. She seeks repose. But the humanity in her will not be put down.

"She strove to force herself into agreement with her new life; she tried to kill her worldliness, as she called it. . . . At times, in the play of her worldly imagination, she conceived of the edifice, and the grounds about it, as peopled with household elves from the olden time, -imps who would not leave the old place, in spite of the nuns, but hung-half lugubriously, half defiantly, nay, perhaps with a lurking hope of restoration-among the vines on the walls without, and about the cornices and dark corners of the rooms within;-forlorn relics these, of the former uncloistered human life that once held sway here. Sometimes, in the extravagance of her fancy, she imagined these little devils as peeping out at her from the bushiness of the cedars, or sometimes as caracoling over the arabesque iron gates at the entrance to the yard, grinning angry protest everywhere against the banishment of family life from the convent."

But she works on faithfully and the reputation of her good deeds goes abroad. When Mr. Marsy, who owns a home adjoining the convent, and who has come upon it with an invalid friend, sees her, he looks upon her with no little curiosity. What he sees impels him to gaze more intently; for the author-as he should do has given much attractiveness to the face of his heroine. Marsy comes into contact with Frances in charity work, and when Graham, his friend, nears the time of death he makes the request that he may have daily visitations from Sister Frances. Her duty impels her to grant the wish, and she visits him each day until he finally dies. Thus she is brought to feel more keenly the personality of Marsy. And Marsy, who has been fascinated by her prettiness, her lurking coquetry and her demure seriousness, determines that he must declare his love for her. Some time after the touching death of Graham, he follows Frances to the rocks on the coast and tells her of his love. She keeps to the path of duty. She has taken a serious step; she will be true to herself, she will regard her dignity and her vow. This she tells Marsy, but not without showing his influence with her. A period of two years

elapses. Marsy has been fighting in Bulgaria, and Frances has been struggling with herself in the convent. A question arises whether Marsy's home had not been conveyed to the convent by an old deed, and Frances, to quiet the title, pays the necessary money into the convent treasury. This coming to the ears of Marsy, brings him to Marshton.

Frances is weary of the convent restraints. In tears she seeks advice from an old friend, who has become an inmate of the House of Good Will. How may she save her dignity and yet break her vow?

We find no fault with the author's decision of this question. But we cannot pass over the last chapter of the book without expressing the opinion that the character of Frances has been marred by it. She is, no doubt, coquettish from the beginning of the story—perhaps worldly. But at eighteen, without great experience, she had shrunk from the conventional world, and there seems to be a retrograde movement in her character when we see her after all her trials and all her experience, turning again to the world. The author has evidently planned with deliberation a surprise in this chapter. But this surprise is not agreeable. The story is not one which-after the Aldrich type-is written to mislead, and which from its conclusion derives spice and brilliancy. On the contrary it is a study of character. It treats of life and death, of serious mistakes, of solemn decisions, and we are entitled to have no character-surprises which are not in the line of natural development. Is Frances' escapade in the final chapter in accord with her growth? The author says yes, this is human nature. We may at least say she gave better promise; we regret her fall-all human nature is not alike. To tell the whole truth, we cannot believe that she so lost her dignity! She was outspoken, frank, brave, and daring. And when she was convinced that it was her duty to leave the convent she would have gone from it boldly. She would not have secretly defied its customs, remained within its doors, and tempted her companions. Her character had too much of calmness in it to warrant such extraordinary loss of poise as she shows in this convent scene with Marsy. She is represented as having toiled for months-patiently, earnestly, bravely-at needle work, for its small pecuniary reward. Never

wavering, she had kept to her struggle. Then she spends four long years in the convent. Would a change of mind, as respects the future, suddenly plunge such a person in a riot of worldly fancy? We think not. Albeit we like her. Albeit we like her. And for her

future we wish peace and full occupation.

The other characters in the book are cleverly drawn. Marsy has about him an air of strength and worth which is gratifying, and Uncle Luther is a human combination of weakness and manliness.

We cordially congratulate Mr. Curran on the good work he has done, and we shall look for any books he may give us in the future with rare interest.