. A full account of the doings of this poisonous
gang is given in _The German Spy in America_ (HUTCHINSON), by JOHN PRICE
JONES, a member of the staff of the New York _Sun_. It is not easy for
anyone, least of all for a good American, to refrain from indignation at
the baseness of the rogues who thus battened for many months on the
United States and their people. The book is soberly and clearly written,
and is commended by Mr. ROOSEVELT in a Foreword, to which are added
another Foreword by the Author, and an Introduction by Mr. ROGER B.
WOOD, formerly U.S. Assistant-Attorney in New York.

* * * * *

With whatever sharpness of criticism I had approached _Ma'am_
(HUTCHINSON), the edge of it would have been turned by the statement
upon the fly-leaf that the author, M. BERESFORD RYLEY, died while the
novel was still in manuscript, and that it has been revised for the
press by her friend, Mr. E.V. LUCAS. As things are, having before me
only the pleasant task of praise, I am the more sorry that I cannot
increase that pleasure by telling the writer how much I have enjoyed a
wholly admirable story. She had above everything the rare art of writing
about homely and familiar matters unboringly. _Ma'am_ (a not too happy
title) begins in a dull parish, where its heroine is the newly-wedded
wife of the curate. You will have read no more than the opening pages
(descriptive of the terrible Sunday evening supper which the pair took
at the Vicarage--a supper of cold meat and a ground-rice mould, whereat
four jaded and parish-worn persons lacerated one another's nerves)
before you will have realised gratefully that the story and its
characters are going to be alive with a very refreshing and unpuppetlike
vitality. Eventually, of course, more happens than Vicarage suppers. An
old lover of _Griselda_ (Mrs. Curate) turns up, and many most
unparochial events follow upon his arrival. The scene shifts to Naples,
and we meet a villaful of men and women, all of them admirably original
and human. Not for a great while have I read a story so unforced and
appealing. It is indeed a sad thought that this graceful pen will give
us nothing more of its quality.

* * * * *

When you hear the title or see the cover of _The Heel of the Hun_
(HODDER AND STOUGHTON) your blood may begin to curdle and your flesh to
creep. Be assured. When I think of some of the war-books vouchsafed to
us Mr. J.P.