Mrs. Holmes endeavors to touch the heart, to take what is pure and excellent and
hold it up to the reader in contrast with what is vile and deceptive. And in this she
excels. The fireside, we are sure, will thank her heartily for these books, and preserve
them with religious strictness, for they are entertaining as well as instructive.

The two tales in this new volume are delightful, and will be well received by the
many who have derived so much entertainment from their predecessors.

There is an air of truthfulness in her common-sense style, an absence of exaggeration
and of high coloring, which conveys a sense of repose to the mind which has fed on the
artificial stimulus of exciting novels. Her womanly gentleness wins the heart, and her
charming fancy throws a spell over the imagination.

The incidents in both these stories are such as pertain to daily experience, and on
that account they bring out more touchingly the traits of individuals in whom the
author determines to interest her readers. Her knowledge of the human heart, in
childhood, and in the multiform trials of woman's lot, gives her the power of an experienced
artist.

She has the happy faculty of enlisting the sympathies and affections of her readers,
and of holding their attention to her pages with deep and absorbing interest.

The two stories which make up this volume—“Dora Deane” and “Maggie Miller”—
have the elements of as wide a popularity as either of their predecessors. She wields a
graceful and graphic pen. Her characters are skilfully portrayed, and she never fails
to win and retain the good opinion of her readers. She has not failed in this agreeable
volume.

These stories are told in her best manner. “Maggie Miller” will be found particularly
interesting. The characters are finely drawn, and the incidents are life-like and
truthful.

The stories in this volume will be read by every lover of fiction with unadulterated
satisfaction. As a student of human character Mrs. Holmes has few equals, and her
descriptive faculties are of a superior order. “Maggie Miller” especially demonstrates
this fact. Some of its passages, as specimens of spirited composition, are seldom
excelled.

The two stories in the work before us are among the most entertaining the talented
authoress has ever written; there is, throughout both, a charm and a beauty which
cannot fail to please, and they have not a dull page within them. The characters are
sketched with a master pen—not overwrought, but yet so earnestly life-like as to be full
of interest—and an easy grace pervades the whole.

A work of unusual promise. Mrs. Holmes possesses an enviable talent in the study of
American character, which is so perfectly developed by acute observation from life, that
it would now be impossible for her to write an uninteresting book.

There still lingers the artist-mind, enlivening, cheering, and consoling by happy
thoughts and pleasant words; moving the heart alternately to joy or sorrow, convulsing
with laughter, or bringing tears to the eyes.

The characters are well drawn, and the tale is one of interest. It will find many well
pleased readers.

The story is simple, natural, truthful.

Before we were aware, we had read the first two chapters. We read on—and on—and
it was long after midnight when we finished the volume. We could not leave it. We
know of no work with which we could compare “'Lena Rivers”—so as to form a just
estimation of its merits.

It is not the first of the author's works, but it is the best.

To the sex we commend it, on the assurance of its merit, volunteered to us by ladies
in whose critical acumen we have the fullest confidence.

The story opens in New England, and is continued in Kentucky, with very lively and
characteristic sketches of scenery and character in both States. It is both GOOD and INTERESTING.

The moral of the plot is excellent. Cowardly virtue, as exhibited by 'Lena's father,
may here learn a lesson without suffering his bitter experience; while the rashness of
youth may be warned against desperate acts, before a perfect understanding is had.

This is an American novel possessing merit far superior to many which have been
published during the last two years. The delineations of character are neatly and accurately
drawn, and the tale is a deeply interesting one, containing many and varied incidents,
illustrative of the workings of the human mind, and of social and domestic life in
different parts of this country. The lesson to be deduced from its pages is a profitable
one—which is more than can be said of many novels of the day.

No admirer of Mrs. Holmes' writings will thank us for a “critical” opinion of this,
her latest and best work. The time for such a thing has gone by. But surely they will
pardon us if we dwell lingeringly and lovingly over one or two of her characters:—the
angel-like Jessie, the rightly-named Angel of the Pines, who, though a child, went
about like a ministering angel, when all others had fled the pestilence that walked at
noonday, and at last fell before its withering stroke. Surely, if a tear falls here, it falls
in the right place. And then Rosa:—Rosa at thirteen the schoolmistress and in love.
One year after, Rosa the governess was again in love. How we are interested in the
tangled web of her life-experience, and how we rejoice when at last the orange-flowers
crown her brow, and the storm-tossed barque reaches the sure haven of repose:

Ada, the deceiving, merits our scorn; Ada, the dissipated, somewhat of our pity. Dr.
Clayton we despise for his fickleness, honor for his after-manliness, and congratulate for
his eventual happiness.

We have read this book with no little satisfaction, for it has a reality about it that
touches a spot not always sensitive to descriptions written with more pretence and literary
style. It is particularly attractive to one with a New-England experience, as its
earlier chapters are drawn from life in the country portions of that region, and those
immediately following are laid in Boston. We do not mean to intimate that the book
is carelessly written, but that it is “the touch of nature that makes all men kin” that is
its especial charm. It does not read like a romance, but like a calm narration by some
friend of events occurring in a circle of one's old friends, and the intense interest with
which we follow the narrative seems to be rather from personal feeling than from the
usual false excitement of the overstrained sentimentalities of most of the modern works
of fiction which “read like a book.”

Our friends in the novel-reading line will gladly hail a new work called “Meadow
Brook,” by Mrs. Mary J. Holmes, author of “Tempest and Sunshine,” and several other
well-known and popular works. “Meadow Brook” is an exceedingly attractive book,
and one that will alternately call forth smiles and tears. The chapters delineating the
life of the youthful “school-ma'am,” and her experience in “boarding round,” may be
termed “rich” in every sense of the word. We doubt if their equal can be met with in
any of the novels of the present day. The after-life of Rosa Lee, the heroine of Meadow
Brook, will be found to be of equal, if not of superior interest to the earlier part, so
graphically delineated in the first half-dozen chapters.

Many of her characters might be, if they are not, drawn from life. We have met a
little Jessie whose bright, sweet face, winning ways, and sunny, happy temper, made
her a favorite with all who knew her. Jessie Lansing vividly recalls our little Jessie,
who, we hope, is still the sunbeam of her own sweet Southern home. Mrs. Holmes
draws her pictures from the deep welling fountain of her own heart and life, reaching
our hearts as well as our imaginations, and will always meet a cordial reception whenever
she appears.

“Meadow Brook” is a plain story of American life and American people, with capital
illustrations of American habits and manners... The story is a well-written common-sense
affair, containing much that will please the reader. Nothing is distorted or overdrawn,
but all is calculated to impress the reader with a belief in the writer—that is,
that she is telling a true tale.

Any one taking up the book must take a “through ticket,” as there is no stopping
place “this side” of the last page. The arts of the designing woman are given in their
true color, showing to what oily-tongued hypocrisy humanity will stoop for the furtherance
of its purposes; what a vast amount of unhappiness one individual may bring upon
an otherwise happy family; what untold misery may result from the groveling spirit
of fancied revenge, when cherished in the bosom of its unhappy possessor.

The talented author of “Tempest and Sunshine” has again hit on a happy subject.
“The Homestead on the Hillside” has afforded her ample scope for the exercise of those
high descriptive powers and those striking portraitures of character which have rendered
her former works such general favorites. In one word, the book before us is no
ordinary production.

Vigor, variety, a boldness and freedom of style and expression, eccentricity alike of
character and incident, are among its most striking peculiarities. She has improved, in
the book before us, upon her first effort, and several of these tales will not fall to add to
her already well established reputation as a vigorous and attractive writer.

The artfulness and resignation exhibited by the Widow Carter, in her modest but not
unnatural endeavors to gain the tender regard of Mr. Hamilton, as she smoothed the pillow
of his dying wife, deserve the especial attention of gentlemen liable to a like attempt
from a similar cause. They will doubtless see a dozen widows in the very dress and position
of the philanthropic Mrs. Carter. There is quite a moral for young Misses, too, in
the book.”

It cannot fall to please the lovers of flowing and graceful narrative.

It will be superfluous to say that Mrs. Holmes is a charming writer.

Its genial spirit, its ready wit, its kindly feeling, will doubtless meet with due appreciation
from all its readers. It touches with ready sympathy the fountains of mirth and
tears, and one can neither restrain the one nor withhold the other, in reading its tales of
joy and sorrow.

We have perused this book with none but feelings of pleasure; and we have closed its
pages, bearing in our heart its sweet spirit and eloquent moral. We heartily commend
it.

Her portrayal of human character and actions are admirable; her style is fluent and
fascinating, and a most intense degree of interest is kept up throughout the volume.
But among all its excellent qualities, most prominent appears its eloquent morals. Read
it, so that you can have it to say, “I ONCE READ A GOOD BOOK.”

A work which will be eagerly sought, for the reader has in this volume one of the
most interesting portions of English history.

A judicious biography of one of the most charming heroines of history.

This is a charming book. We have read it with the most thrilling interest.

Mr. Bartlett always writes well, and he sustains his high reputation in this work, which
is well set off by the publishers.

A very readable book.

We could wish that this volume might find a place in every young lady's library, to
the displacement of some of the pernicious novels of the day.

Very well written, and certainly worthy of becoming widely known.

His chapters and sentences are symmetrically constructed, while his ready perception
appropriates all the points of interest in his subject, and rejects that which is irrelevant
or not authentic.

An easy, graceful writer, he seldom fails to add interest to the subject on which he
writes