t can be said of them is that they
belong to rather stock types. Altogether a book which many people
will describe as "perfectly sweet;" but, because of its sympathetic
qualities and sound workmanship, it deserves a more distinctive label.

* * * * *

When the lean brown hero with the hawk lip extends an arm of steel
from the six-cylinder Rolls-Royce in which he is lounging and snatches
the beautiful mannequin from between the very jaws of an omnibus, we
realise that we are in the presence of Romance in its purest form.
A spin in the Park and a cosy dinner in a Soho restaurant are quite
sufficient to convince hero and heroine that they are each other's
own. Some novelists would let it go at that, but not Mr. ARTHUR
APPLIN, who has only got to chapter II, and wishes to give us value
for our money. What's to come is, as SHAKSPEARE says, still unsure,
but apparently the heroine, who has gone to break the happy news to a
poor but respectable aunt in Devonshire, is met at the country station
by a chauffeur, who calls her "Lady Alice" and waves her towards a
large Limousine. She knows she isn't Lady Alice and has no car to
meet her, but she hops in nevertheless. She doesn't know where she is
going, but she is on her way. There is a smash, and when the heroine
comes to she is being called Lady Alice in an ancestral castle.
Everything has been obliterated from her memory, including her own
identity and that of the hero, and the author can now make a fresh
start. If you wish to know how it all ends you must get _The Woman
Who Was Not_ (WARD, LOCK), but there is no compelling reason why
you should.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "OH, YOU AWFUL BOY--YOU'VE LEFT THE TACKS IN THE ROAD,
AND NOW THE TANK'LL GET A PUNCTURE."]

* * * * *

AIR-RAID FASHIONS AT MANCHESTER.

"Monday commences the final week of Sir Thomas Beecham's SEASON
OF NIGHTY PROMENADE CONCERTS".--_Manchester City Press_.

* * * * *

"WENSLEYDALE BLUE-FACED SHEEP-BREEDERS' SHOW."

_Yorkshire Post_.

We cannot conceive why these breeders should look blue with prices at
their present height.

* * * * *

WAR-TIME FRUGALITY.

"Before an interested and applauding public on the verandah of the
Club-house Mrs. MacDonald, who had also provided tea, distributed
the cups and other in