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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 65
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Mrs. Henry Wood's Dstovels. The Four Com...
down to sleep at his mother's , leaving Mrs . Massingberd in possession of the house at Verner ' s Pride , to the unutterable disgust of
Mrs . Tynn the housekeeper ; On the morrow conies the bitter awakening ; Lady Verner ' s
_frigid anger , poor Lucy Tempest's surprise and dismay , the unflattering astonishment of Deerham village and the estate and
household of Verner ' s Pride ;—worse than all , Lionel ' s inner consciousness that he has acted dishonourably by Lucy Tempest , and—woe
betide him—that he really loves her the best of the two ! But nothing avails ; his deliberate promise has been uttered , and Lionel
marries Sybilla Massingberd , and takes her home to Verner ' s Pridewhere she speedily sets to work to ruin him by senseless
extravagance , , to vex him by frivolity , to irritate him by ill temper , and to take every recognised feminine means-of making him the most
miserable of men . Such is the position of poor Lionel after two or three years of married lifewhen Deerham is suddenly convulsed by a
, dreadful report of a ghost , a tall black-haired ghosfc with a large black mark on the whiskerless cheek , which prowls round the village
pond where poor Rachel Frost met her death . Mrs . Duff's Dan is frightened into convulsions ; Labourer Hook's daughter Alice
barely escapes with her life ; even Mr . Bourne , the Vicar , antisupernatural in all his ideas , meets the phantom on a
moonlight night , and testifies that it bore the unmistakeable features and air of—Frederick Massingberd !
This part of the story is exceedingly well done . The denouement is worked out in anything but a commonplace way . As the book
is still a novelty at the circulating libraries we will not enter upon it , but recommend everybody to find it out for themselves .
We turn aside to notice the great beauty and truth of the episode of Jan and the Miss Wests . Janus ( commonly called Jan ) Verner
, is Lionel's younger brother , of whom Lady Verner was wont to say that she could not imagine how he came to belong to herself and
her deceased husband Sir Lionel , so hopelessly ugly and awkward and unconventional was he . Lady Verner , having great lack of
money in her widowhood , had yielded to Jan's desire of being placed with Dr . West . Pounding medicines in a mortar appeared
the height of bliss to this ungainly youth , and when we are introassisted duced to by him Master he is Cheese in full a young swing as gentleman a country who practition habituall er y ,
, < lfeels faint" between every hearty meal and eats plums out of a wash-hand basin . Jan is adored by the country folkwho do not
, object liko Lady Verner to his , habit of saying "Law" before every observationor to his other little peculiarity of sitting on the table ,
, or on the arm of a chair . The two middle-aged Miss Wests , Sybilla _' s elder sisters , have incessant cause to bless his kindness
and delicacy ; wherever he goes he brings blessing , and at last he actually wins to wife the pet heiress whom Lady Verner had in her
own mind assigned to Lionel . He marries Lady Mary Elmsley ,
vox . xi . _y
Notices Of Books. 65
NOTICES OF BOOKS . 65
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 2, 1863, page 65, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_02031863/page/65/
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