little descriptive study with which it closes,
entitled "A Libation to the Gods":

"She was an old woman, and her face was wizened and deeply lined. In her
grey hair three long silver knives formed a fantastic headgear. Her dress
of faded blue consisted of a long jacket, worn and patched, and a pair of
trousers that reached a little below her calves. Her feet were bare, but
on one ankle she wore a silver bangle. It was plain that she was very
poor. She was not stout but squarely built and in her prime she must have
done without effort the heavy work in which her life had been spent. She
walked leisurely, with the sedate tread of an elderly woman, and she
carried on her arm a basket. She came down to the harbour; it was crowded
with painted junks; her eyes rested for a moment curiously on a man who
stood on a narrow bamboo raft, fishing with cormorants; and then she set
about her business. She put down her basket on the stones of the quay, at
the water's edge, and took from it a red candle. This she lit and fixed in
a chink of the stones. Then she took several joss-sticks, held each of
them for a moment in the flame of the candle and set them up around it.
She took three tiny bowls and filled them with a liquid that she had
brought with her in a bottle and placed them neatly in a row. Then from
her basket she took rolls of paper cash and paper 'shoes' and unravelled
them, so that they should burn easily. She made a little bonfire, and when
it was well alight she took the three bowls and poured out some of their
contents before the smouldering joss-sticks. She bowed herself three times
and muttered certain words. She stirred the burning paper so that the
flames burned brightly. Then she emptied the bowls on the stones and again
bowed three times. No one took the smallest notice of her. She took a few
more paper cash from her basket and flung them in the fire. Then, without
further ado, she took up her basket, and with the same leisurely, rather
heavy tread, walked away. The gods were duly propitiated, and like an old
peasant woman in France, who has satisfactorily done her day's
housekeeping, she went about her business."

=v=

W. Somerset Maugham was born in 1874, the son of Robert Ormond Maugham. He
married Syrie, daughter of the late Dr. Barnardo. Mr. Maugham has a
daughter. His education was got at King's School, Canterbury, at
Heidelberg University and at St. Thomas's Hospital, London.

Mr. Maugham's father was a