least for me) its undoing. His characters are fashioned with the
nicest ingenuity; the positions into which he so dextrously manipulates
them compel your interest and delighted wonder; but never once do they
touch your emotions, and never once can you see them as anything but the
creations of a highly talented brain. This is the more strange because Mr.
BERESFORD'S people are as a rule so convincingly real. Perhaps to some
degree the effect of artifice is due to the author's exclusive
preoccupation with his central character. _Cecilia's_ husband, her
daughters, the home of her early married life, are shown to us only by the
light of her flashing personality; this withdrawn, they simply cease to
exist. On the whole, therefore, I should call _An Imperfect Mother_ a
highly entertaining example of pure intellect, admirable but uninspired,
which for my own part I enjoyed amazingly.

* * * * *

Though "E. H. ANSTRUTHER" (Mrs. J. C. SQUIRE) has called her latest story
_The Husband_ (LANE) one can hardly resist the feeling that this is rather
a generous description of the central character, who indulged in so much
philandering with one person or another that it is difficult to regard him
as more than a husband in, so to speak, his spare time. _Richard
Dennithorne_, I must believe, was a "ladies' man" in two senses, since he
is undeniably a very womanly conception of the all-conquering male, with
indeed more than a little of _Mr. Rochester_ in his composition. The story
tells how _Penelope_, the heroine, comes to live with her adopted aunt
_Margery_, of whom _Richard_ was the spouse (intermittent); how _Richard_,
at the moment absent upon amorous affairs, returned, and so fascinated
_Penelope_ with his masterful ways that she fled to London; how, almost
immediately after, she stultified her precautions, but saved the plot, by
becoming _Richard's_ secretary at his office in that city; and how,
finally, poor _Margery_ (who throughout monopolised my sympathy), having
generously expired, _Penelope_ and the ex-husband fell into each other's
arms. Of course there is a lot more than this really, so don't think that I
have spoilt the fun for you. As for the quality of the tale, this, I fancy,
may be better appreciated by women than men, since, as I have hinted, its
outlook is so essentially feminine. Mrs. SQUIRE writes with sincerity and
brings her characters to life. She needs, however, to remember that wo