n. Then, just as her plans seemed
to be prospering, word came secretly to her that there was a man
shattered and with memory lost in a base hospital who might possibly be
the brother-in-law whom she so emphatically didn't want. What happens
upon this you shall find out for yourself. Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD, as you
will notice, has no fear of a dramatic, even melodramatic, situation;
handles it, indeed, with a skill that the most popular might envy.
Thence onwards the story, perhaps a trifle slow in starting, gathers
force. The two visits to the camp at X---- (a very thin disguise for a
place that no Englishman of our time will ever forget) are admirably
vivid; the last chapters especially being as moving as anything that
Mrs. WARD has given us, whether in her popular, profound or propagandist
manner.

* * * * *

Lately, Mr. E.F. BENSON seems to have been devoting himself almost
wholly to chronicling the short and simple annals of the middle-aged.
With one exception, all his recent protagonists have been, if not
exactly in the sere and yellow, at least ripely mature. So that such
a title as that of his latest novel, _An Autumn Solving_ (COLLINS),
produced in me rather a feeling of familiar expectancy than of surprise.
Also when the wrapper artist clothes a volume with a picture of an
elderly gentleman obviously giving up an attractive young woman of
perhaps one-third his years it is idle to pretend that the contents
retain all the thrill of the unforeseen. Having said so much, I can let
myself go in praise (as how often before) of those qualities of insight
and gently sub-acid humour that make a BENSON novel an interlude of pure
enjoyment to the "jaded reviewer." In case the indiscreet cover may
happily have been removed before the volume reaches your hands, I do not
propose to give away the plot in any detail. The autumn sowing of course
produces a crop not exactly of wild oats, but of romantic tares that
springs in the hitherto barren heart of one _Keeling_, prosperous
tradesman, husband, father, mayor, public benefactor and baronet,
by reason of the too sympathetic damsel who types his letters and
catalogues his library. That library shows Mr. BENSON'S genius;
without it I should hardly have been able to believe in the subsequent
happenings, but, given this "secret garden," all the tragedy is
explained. I have left myself no space in which to do justice to some
admirable characterization. _K