The Fortunes of the Farrells

 The Fortunes of the Farrells by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey has been on my shelves since I was about fourteen. I did the bookstall at CND jumble sales around then. The woman who brought in The Fortunes of the Farrells said that she'd loved it when she was my age. She gave me the book, a handsome, illustrated edition published by The Religious Tract Society in 1907. Mrs George de Horne Vaizey's original name was Jessie Bell. She grew up in Liverpool. Ruth and Mollie Farrell are put through trials, like Tamino in The Magic Flute, not by the Queen of the Night, but by rich Uncle Bernard, who's fading away at The Court somewhere outside London, and has no heir. The Farrell sisters, along with two nephews from the other side of the family, Jack Melland and Victor Druce, are invited for three months so Uncle Bernard can observe them and decide who should be his heir. He would prefer a male heir, he said. But Jessie Bell, Mrs George de Horne Vaizey, wants justice for her girls. Especially her wild impulsive Mollie. She satisfies the needs of her story and her conscience, her sense of justice between two covers. Jack and Mollie. Ruth and the doctor back at home, who has already proposed. An Oirish female sense of justice and triumph. Victor and Lady Margot Blount, that's a story as yet untold.