y
knit. The Rector of Roding, the _Rev. Henry French_, is a fine figure of
a man honourably devoted to the duties of his parish and abounding in
good works. It is sad to see him cast down from his pride of place by
the sudden revelation of an ill deed done in his thoughtless youth at
Oxford. In an interview managed with an admirable sense of dramatic
fitness he is faced by a son, the living embodiment of his
all-but-forgotten sin, and soon the whole parish knows of it. But the
Rector, with the aid of his wife, fights his fight and in the end wins
back his self-respect and the respect of his neighbours. He is helped,
too, by _Dr. Merrow_, the Congregational minister, a beautiful character
drawn with deep sympathy. Indeed, it is _Dr. Merrow_ who has the _beau
role_, and, I must add, deserves it. For the rest I must let Mr.
Marshall's book speak for itself. He has written a very powerful and
interesting story.

* * * * *

Among reviewers of books there is a convention by which the matter of a
first edition--whether a single story or a collection of stories--which
has been reproduced from a magazine or magazines, is treated as if it
were a novelty. It is a sound and benevolent convention, because the
stuff of magazines only receives at best a very sketchy notice. Miss May
Sinclair, however, is apparently prepared; to risk the loss of any
advantage to be derived from it, for her collection of short and
middle-sized stones republished under the title of the first of them,
_The Judgment of Eve_ (Hutchinson), is prefaced by an article in which
she replies to those critics who took notice of some of them at the time
of their appearance in magazine form. By this recognition of judgment
already passed she sets me free to regard her stories as old matter, and
to confine myself to a review of her introduction. In this answer to her
critics I cannot feel that she has been well advised. Even in a second
edition critics are best left alone, unless the author can correct them
on a point of fact or interpretation of fact. Here it is on a matter of
opinion that she joins issue with them. They seem (the misguided ones)
to have rashly said that "The Judgment of Eve" was "a novel boiled
down," and that "The Wrackham Memoirs," on the other hand, was "a short
story spun out." But Miss Sinclair is very sure that she knew what she
was about. She can "lay her hand on her heart and swear that 'The
Judgment of Eve'