re the restoration of her child might have helped matters,
but it doesn't know who she is and refuses to part from its
foster-mother--we find her lethargic, off her feed, indifferent to the
claims of menial toil, and clamorous (as I have shown) for her rights
of the daily bath.

In the first joy of conjugal reunion _Ezra_ consents to tolerate the
discomfort of this change, but in the end he loses patience and hits
her. She leaves for London the same afternoon.

Six black months pass over the husband's bowed head, and then, on a
very windy night (the wind was well done), she makes a re-entry, and
confesses that, under stress of need, she has lapsed from virtue. This
is bad news for _Ezra_, but he is prepared to forgive a fault in which
he himself has had a fair share. Only there must be a sacrifice of
something, if moral justice is to be appeased. So he chooses between
his wife and his chapel and does execution on the latter. He goes
out into the storm and sets the thing alight. His conscience is thus
purified by fire, the gale being favourable to arson.

It is a pity that so excellent an object as a brick chapel should be
the evil genius of the play. Yet so it is. Built of the materials of
Scandinavian drama, it is always just round the corner, heavy with
doom. We never see it, but we hear more than enough about it, and in
the end it becomes a bore which we are well rid of.

The theme of the perils of foster-motherhood is not new, but Mrs.
MERRICK has treated it freshly and with a very decent avoidance of its
strictly sexual aspects. But her methods are too sedentary. She kept
on with her atmosphere long after we knew the details of the cottage
interior by heart; while a whole volume of active tragedy--_Mary's_
six months in London--was left to our fevered imagination. And the
sense of reality which she was at such pains to create was spoiled by
dialogue freely carried on in the immediate vicinity of persons who
were not supposed to overhear it.

The chief attraction of _Mary-Girl_ (a silly title) was the engaging
personality of Miss MAY BLAYNEY. Always a fascinating figure to watch,
she showed an extraordinary sensitiveness of voice and expression.
As for that honest and admirable actor, Mr. MCKINNEL, who made the
perfect foil to her charms that every good husband should wish to
be, he seems never to tire of playing these stern, dour, semi-brutal
parts. That more genial characters are open to him his success in
_