The Lady of the Ice. A Novel

The scene is in Quebec, and principally in what may be called garrison society, the two most prominent persons being young officers, handsome, good-humored, and not too intellectual, who are both very much and very intricately in love. They are managed so as to make an impression of reality, in spite of the improbabilities, and one likes them, as, in fact, one does all the people of the cheerful little novel. Of course, there are the 'ladies with whom these admirable warriors are in love, and an amusing old Irish gentleman, father to one of the half-dozen heroines. We do not know but Jack Randolph's extrication from his three engagements by the wise action of the highly consolable betrothed, who one after another throw him over, on hearing of his complicated relations, is as interesting as Macrorie's rescue of the lady of the ice, and subsequent wooing of her. She alone of the young ladies appears a little shadowy and intangible; all the rest are like the delightful young ladies of actual life, allowing for a difference between Canadian and American girls. This difference we imagine Mr. De Mille to have noted very nicely, for his people seem a middle type between the American and the English ; yet we are not sure of this, and may, in ignorance of provincial character, be doing him more than justice.

No one can help thinking well of Mr. O'Halloran, the Irish gentleman, who perfectly forgives Macrorie's mistake in making love to his wife, and yet obliges him to fight a duel out of respect to the code, and then takes it as a mark of the greatest kindness when Macrorie consents to fire first., The whole transaction is deliciously Irish; and the novel has only the best-tempered and charming catastrophes in every respect. We must say for C. G. Bush, has illustrated it with the most lovely young ladies and handsome young fellows, and has come as near the ideal of light and agreeable art in one way as James De Mille has in another.

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Eleven Illustrations by C. G. Bush