PHOEBE TILSON.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 59

PHOEBE TILSON.

By Fjiank Pope Hxxmi'Hrjdy.

Melbourne: Ward, Lock, and Co.

A simply-told, pathetic, and very readable story is produced by Mr Humphrey under the title — not a very taking one, either — o£ "Phoebe Tilscm." it is true that there is nothing very new in either scenery, plot, or style, no very striking conception of character or originality of style, and yet from among vll these negatives there issues a pleasantly capable and readable volume. The plot," which is simplicity itself, develops from the heartless desertion of Phoebe Tilson on her wedding day by the handsome, graceless scamp she had determined to marry.

Phoebe Avas a remarkably plain and seri-ous-minded spinster of uncertain age. Her parents both being dead, the comfortable, well-kept homestead .standing amidst its pleasant orchards "and alluvial meadows was absolutely her own and of sufficient value to attract the attention of Walter Emery, who seems to have been the village prodigal and Lovelace rolled into one. At the last moment, when the wedding guests have arrived, and the bride sits waiting in her bridal finery, a messenger arrives with the news tint Emery has eloped with Nannie Carpenter, the sweet and only daughter of old Major Carpenter.

For many long, dreary weeks it seems as though Phoebe had really lost her reason over the heartless desertion of the only man she had ever loved or ever "thought of." The crops, fruit, aud farm produce are left to rot upon the ground, or wither on the stem ; the stock is sold, the farm hands dismissed ; all her cash — poor foolish Phcebe ! — had gone in Walter Emery's pocket, to pay his honeymoon with Nannie as events proved, and in a very short time the snug, well-kept farm, where peace and plenty had so long reigned, became a waste, given over to biting and sordid poverty. But there were comfort, love, and happiness yet in store for the poor, half-distraught Phcebe — plainer than ever, harsher than ever, consumed with a bitterness of hatred and despair which shut out heaven itself— and it came by the hands of a little child, a nameless waif whom someone Ins left upon her neglected hearth one evening in her absence. What the aftercourse of the story is, and lio-w the curtain of silence which for so many year* enveloped the fate of Walter Emery and poor, pretty Nannie Carpenter is at last lifted, it is scarcely fair to indicate. Suffice it to say that the book is a pleasantly readable one, and will be most appreciated by readers who are not given over to the sensational school of fiction.