BOOKS IN BRIEF. 



631 



rather youthful fault of (apparently) dwell- 

 ing on more delicate subjects with a half- 

 defiant, aggressive worldliness. But they 

 have a real personality and life; none too 

 common qualities in such stories. 



Mrs. Gray's Past. By Herbert Flowerdew. 

 (Paul, 3/6.) 

 Mrs. Gray and her little son are the objects 

 of gossip and slander in the town of Hol- 

 lowminster : more particularly are they 

 persecuted by Miss Pettival, one of those 

 old maids who are suppo.sed to haunt every 

 cathedral city and traduce their betters. 

 Miss Pettival wants to know who Mr. 

 Gray was, who Mrs. Gray was before she 

 was married, and why she is so friendly 

 with Gerald Winver. Mr. Flowerdew does 

 not attempt to tell any very new story, but 

 he contrives to put old situations with a 

 considerable amount of freshness and viva- 

 city, and he does not forget to make his 

 characters real human beings, and to give 

 them motives that are credible and actions 

 that are possible. The suspense of the stoi-y 

 is vei-y ingeniously sustained, and the 

 reader is really left in doubt as to the exact 

 past of Mrs. Gray and the share in it of 

 Godfrey Markham, the handsome and 

 scoundrelly arti.st. It is almost a surprise 

 to find that Mrs. Gray has all the while 

 been sheltering her sister, who is married 

 to Canon Gabriell, a cleric of the most 

 rigorous standai-ds. The plot unravels very 

 neatly, and everyone who deserves it gets 

 happiness, while the voice of slander is 

 successfully quieted. 



A Page in a Man's History. By Penelope 

 Ford. (J. Long.) 

 The tragic story of a modern girl, a real 

 genius, but restless and somewhat neurotic. 

 In South Africa she meets a man forceful 

 and hanlsonie, but rough and ill-man- 

 nered. At the moment of their parting he 

 leads her to believe that he loves her. 

 Meeting in society later, she finds that she 

 has been but an incident in his life. 



CahrieVs Garden. By Cecil Adair. (Paul.) 

 A romance full of beautiful thoughts and 

 with a hero whose; self-sacrifice might be 

 called sentimental in these modern and 

 material davs, for Miss Adair n-mmds one 

 of the late Rosa M. Carey. Gabriel Gas- 

 coio-n lias in a moment of aberration 

 cheated at cards, and is exiled by his father 

 to his mother's estate iu an i.sland off La.s 

 Palmas. Tliere he finds a couplet carved 

 in stono which has comforted Ins mother 

 and o-ives him a new view of life and eter- 

 nitv." Gabriel meets in his island a girl 

 who sati.sfied every desire of his soul, finds 

 that she is betrothed already, but that there 

 are overwhelming obstacles against a niar- 

 ria<Te Gabriel could probably remove the 

 impediment, and rises to the occasion. Iho 

 description of the island garden is beauti- 

 ful, though rather too long drawn out. 



A Soul in Shadow. By Else Carrier. (Long.) 

 A crloomy and not particularly natural 

 stoi^. in" which twin lirothers are intro- 

 duced the elder being made to believe that 

 he has committed finst bigamy and then 



murder. The deceit of his twin and his 

 own supposed misdeeds bring him nearly 

 to death's door, but his wife's love draws 

 him back. 



So It Is With the Dams(d. Bv Nora Vynne. 

 (Stanley Paul, 3/6.) 

 Probably Mi.ss Vynne had no intention of 

 helping the imagination towards a future 

 for Miss Robins' " Little Sister." but .she 

 ha.s taken a girl of somewhat stronger 

 nature, but ju.st as absolutely innocent, and 

 allowed her to fall into a similar hell. Miss 

 Gower is carried to South America, but 

 escapes from her keeper, rising from her 

 fall as Aurora Leigh did. But more 

 modern than she, Miss Vynne's heroine 

 thinks no shame to marry a man brave and 

 noble enough to realise the circumstances, 

 and the fine and courageous spirit which 

 overcame them. 



The Little Hour of Peter Wells. Bv David 

 Whitelaw. (Hodder.) 

 This tale of an undersized Cockney clerk, 

 who behaved with as great a chivalry as 

 any knight of old, goes with a swing from 

 start to finish. Peter undertakes a politi- 

 cal mission, rescues a beautiful lady and 

 restores her lover to her in most thrilling 

 fashion. 



The Oil Hair Bv David Hennesser. (Hod- 

 der.) 

 This novel, which won the £400 prize in a 

 recent competition, shows the wisdom of 

 the judges, for not only are the adventures 

 entliraliing. but the "hero himself is an 

 original, Salathiel being the son of a Jew 

 who had been a convict. 



TAr .{rriohl Lip. By C. E. Lawrence. 

 (Murray.) 

 Mr. Lawrence's description of a thoroughly 

 conventional and solid .stockbroker and his 

 family connections would make a capital 

 theme for a farce, especially in that part 

 which relates to the son's adoption of a 

 baby left on his threshold in a famous inn 

 just oflF Fleet Street. The picture of the 

 laundress, the laundress's daugliter. and 

 the embryo barrister, his sweetheart (she 

 and the uncle and aunt dancing attend- 

 ance upon the baby, whose dry nur.se is the 

 quixotic young .\rnold himself) is so farci- 

 cal as almost to overshadow Uw underlying 

 pathos. 



Hard Pressed. Bv l"r. ii M. Wliite. (.Ward. 

 Lock.) 

 A smootli-running story. 111 which liorso- 

 racing and love play alternate parts, for 

 a father wants his dauglitor to marry a 

 seemingly rich scoundrel, wlio is after all 

 a cheat, gaining his money by manonivr- 

 ing a telephone on top of a house overlook- 

 ing a suburban racecourse. 



//((// and Half Tragcdi/: Scenes in Blaek and 

 White. By Ascott R. Hope. (Black.) 

 These half-a-dozen stories of schoolboy life 

 Scottish. Irish and English — are told 

 with the fullest sympathy and understand- 

 ing. " Sent to Coventry." the first story, 

 contains material for a whole volume. 



