Bad Boy." The interpolated heroics are too obviously constructed for effect to be capable of producing any. They are like the crashing and flashing of a stage thunderstorm. One acknowledges their worth as settings, but they would never perturb the spirit nor turn milk sour.
The picture of home-life among the middle classes, as gathered from this and other works of the same author, is sound and healthy. There is deference to parental authority; there are simple amusements, and close guardianship which watches over intercourse between the sexes; there is naïve expression of opinion in matters of faith and philosophy; and, permeating all, the serenity of easy, unhurried existence, which gently bears rich and poor upon its placid surface. Extremely pleasing are these after the turbid and motley variations which are required to spice parallel histories in our own progressive centres. It is food for pride, as well as patriotism, to observe that a commission of importance to los Estados Unidos, and a subsequent tour through that region of high civilization, is the reward reserved for the brave young man who
