her than
vicious, she drifts into a relationship which could have had only one
conclusion, if her lover, tiring of platonics, had not prematurely
pressed his demands. Thoroughly scared by his violence she runs away
and finds sanctuary with the "perfect love" of the title. In this happy
solution she had better fortune than she deserved. It is not every woman
who has the good luck, when rushing blindly out of the House of Peril
into the wintry night (in a ball-dress), to find--what had apparently
escaped _Jean's_ memory for the moment--that her faithful husband's
estate is in the immediate neighbourhood. Though Lady TROUBRIDGE'S sense
of style is not impeccable she can tell a good tale; her dialogue rings
true and her characters are well observed. The trouble with most authors
of Society novels is that either they know their subject but can't
write, or that they can write but know nothing of their subject. Lady
TROUBRIDGE is one of the very few writers in this kind who both know
their world and how to portray it.

* * *

Mr. B. BENNION follows the vogue for confidentially descriptive covers
in announcing, as a title to his volume of angling reminiscences, that
_The Trout are Rising in England and South Africa_ (LANE) and suggesting
that here is "a book for slippered ease." One is certainly warned not
to expect anything very strenuous in its course, and indeed so placidly
flow its waters that few, perhaps, but devotees of the craft will
follow it to the end. Not but what there are metaphorical trout in it,
too--enticing descriptions of bits of rivers, for instance--but on the
whole they are easy-going fish that come to bank without showing very
much sporting spirit. Here is no manual of precise information, though
even old fishermen may gather a hint or two; nor yet a guide-book to the
trout-streams of two continents; not even a collection of good stories,
though anyone may come across some old friends in it. The author's yarns
indeed are numerous and, on the whole, as an angler's yarns should be,
picturesque. If he does seem to enjoy the rather feeble joke or incident
as much as the other sort, that may be natural in a book of ease,
whether slippered or not. Indeed one half suspects it is as a book for
his own ease that the writer is mainly considering it, yet, taken in the
right spirit and especially if you are an enticer of trout, it may
be for your ease too. Of course, if you are not an angler and i