Review of Revieus, US/IS. J//^ BOOK OF THE MONTH. 



So- 



hopeless. 



Sister refuses to see her own lover, 

 ♦vho has been doing his utmost for her, 

 raging that anyone should trouble about 

 anything save Bettina. Meanwhile the 

 mother has passed away absolutely 

 ignorant of all that has happened. 



Sister makes no effort to live, and, in 

 spite of the care lavished upon her by 

 her aunt, is getting weaker and weaker, 

 when one night, or early morning rather, 

 stands out clear. 



" \"aguel\' I remembered a renewed 

 struggle and a fresh defeat. Xow, 

 strangely unaccountably I had waked 

 out of deep sleep with a feeling quite 



safe and sure at last that Bettv^ was 



f)) 

 ree. 



Sister is sure that now at last Bettina 

 is dead, and is thankful. 



Lying in her bed — the sleeping nurse 

 by the window^ — Sister sees Bettina's 

 face outlined against a cloud. 



" It seemed to me that a pale young 

 face — not like the Bettina I had known, 

 and still Bettina's face — was leaning 

 down out of Heaven to bring me com- 

 fort. 



" But as I looked I saw there was 

 high purpose as well as a world of pit}' 

 in the face, as though she would have 



me know that not in vain her innocence 

 had borne the burden of sin. 



"And I was full of wondering. Till 

 suddenly T realised that not to comfort 

 me alone, nor mainly, was Betty lean- 

 ing out of Heaven . . . she was 

 come to do for others what no one had 

 done for her. 



" I knelt clown by the window and 

 thanked m)- sister. 



" Others shall thank her too." 



This is the bare outline of one part 

 of this intensely moving tale, written 

 to give realit}' to the horrors which no 

 police reports, not even the Pall Mall 

 accounts of '85, could make human 

 enough for the present needed purpose, 

 for reports are en bloc, and so unhuman. 

 The stor)' as I have given it here is 

 necessarily incomplete, and must suffer 

 from that. Bettina, oh, Bettina ! I have 

 not dared to picture her here in all her 

 innocent loveliness and charm. Miss 

 Robins has mercifulh' drawn a veil 

 when the picture became too terrible to 

 contemplate, and though the ending 

 may seem to be left too much to the 

 imagination of the reader, is not Miss 

 Robins right in refusing the ordinary 

 banal ending to a novel which deals 

 with realities? 



AN UNCOMPROMISING BISHOP. 



FrancU Paget, Bishop of Oxford. (Macmillan 

 and Oo. 15s. net.) 



There are some men \\hom to know 

 is to love, but the difficulty is to get 

 to know them. The one thing abso- 

 lutely certain is that none could fail to 

 respect the Bishop of Oxford, whilst 

 those who knew him found it hard to 

 analyse the secret of the spell he 

 wielded in his jDcrsonal intercourse. 

 The Archbishop of Canterbury says of 

 him : " Hardly ever among all the 

 changes and chances of such days of 

 work on Commissions and Committees, 

 or days of leisure when travelling in 

 the Italian i\lps, did I see him either 

 seriously ruffled in temper or lacking m 

 gracious courtesy or in resourcefulness 

 and buoyancy of thought and action. 

 This, surely, 'may be claimed without 



misgiving b\- those who have learned 

 from him and loved him : that he never 

 failed to make effort seem worth while." 

 I suppose, however, to those who only 

 met him occasional 1)- the reserve of his 

 demeanour and his extreme dignity 

 would be the chief impression carried 

 away. 



Reading- this story of his life by his 

 brother and his son-in-law. the idea 

 strongl}' impressed upon us is that his 

 humility was so entire that it made him 

 tower above all others, not because of 

 anything in himself, but because of the 

 power \vhich worked through him. 



Such a book as this, however, can 

 scarcely be described. It must be read 

 as a whole in order to get the true im- 

 pression of a man whose nobility was 

 so great and influence so far-reaching. 



