Mrs.Holmes is very happy in portraying domestic life.

Old and young peruse her stories with great delight, for she writes in a style that all can comprehend."-- _New York Weekly._ The North American Review, vol.81, page 557, says of Mrs.Mary J.
Holmes' novel, "English Orphans":--"With this novel of Mrs.Holmes' we have been charmed, and so have a pretty numerous circle of discriminating readers to whom we have lent it.

The characterization is exquisite, especially so far as concerns rural and village life, of which there are some pictures that deserve to be hung up in perpetual memory of types of humanity fast becoming extinct.

The dialogues are generally brief, pointed, and appropriate.

The plot seems simple, so easily and naturally is it developed and consummated.