Castle Blair: A Story of Youthful Days

There is quite a lovely little book just come out about children, 'Castle Blair.'... The book is good and lovely and true, having the best description of a noble child in it that I ever read, and nearly the best description of the next best thing—a noble dog. —John Ruskin.

Mrs. Daly's Cottage.
BY FLORA L. SHAW AUTHOR OF HECTOR, PHYLLIS BROWNE, AND A SEA CHANGE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. MARY A. LIVERMORE
ILLUSTRATED BY I. AND H. WHITNEY
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
Copyright, 1902, By D. C. Heath & Co. 1L2
I find Castle Blair a bright, breezy story for children, most entertainingly told. The scenes are laid in Ireland. A bachelor uncle makes a home at Castle Blair for the children of his brother in India, in the English service, and for an orphaned niece from France, older than her cousins, who becomes the mistress of the house. She is educated and is altogether charming, possesses French tact and adaptability, is very fond of children, and lives out her motto, Peace on earth, and good will toward men. The children from India are utterly untrained, high-spirited, and lawless, but are good-hearted, very capable, and innately noble. These, with the benignant bachelor uncle, absorbed in making collections of antiques and curios, and his disagreeable agent, Plunkett, who manages the estate, and is hard and unlovely, are the main characters of the story. Everything ends happily, the tone of the story is uplifting, and the young people who read Castle Blair will not only be charmed with it, but will be made happier and better for having read it.
MARY A. LIVERMORE.
Melrose, September 22, 1902.
Night had closed in round Castle Blair. In the park the great trees, like giant ghosts, loomed gloomily indistinct through the dim atmosphere. Not a sound was to be heard but the steady down-pour of rain, and, from time to time, a long, low shudder of trees as the night wind swept over the park. But there was one spot of light in the landscape. The hall door of the castle stood open, and behind it, in hospitable Irish fashion, there blazed a fire from which the warm rays streamed out and illumined the very rain itself; for the dampness caught the pleasant glow and reflected it back again, till all round about the doorway there was a halo of golden mist. The stone arch was hidden by it, but it formed a beautiful framework of light for certain little figures, who, dark and ruddy against the glowing background, were to be seen dancing backwards and forwards as though impatiently waiting for something. They were only children, and there were three of them, two fair-haired girls, and a boy.