ging these by the same discipline to a
readier appreciation of the intellectual and idealist position, is well
enough worked out. The character-drawing impressed me less favourably.
The author, I should say, finds it rather difficult to understand
the ordinary good or indifferent fellow with his qualities and their
defects. I doubt the possibility of such a snake in the grass as
_Lieutenant Seymour_ carrying on without getting kicked. Nor do I think
that that simple soldier man, _Fortescue, V.C._, would have so tamely
accepted _Dugdale's_ betrayal to the woman they both loved of the fact
that he had just seen his rival putting a dubious young lady into a cab
in Regent Street at midnight. There is a good deal of thoughtful work
in this novel which should be interesting to amateur students of the
psychology of war and men of war.

* * * * *

The latest of Mrs. J. B. BUCKROSE'S genial little comedies about a
comfortable world is concerned with war-weddings, their cause, and some
hints for their successful conduct. She calls it _Marriage While You
Wait_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), and illustrates her theme with the case of
a young man and maiden, who dashed, like so many others, into matrimony
in the breathless haste of short leave, and came dangerously near
repenting at leisure. Only near, of course; Mrs. BUCKROSE is too
confirmed an optimist not to make it clear that the blackest boredom
has a silver lining; and I had never any real fear that her nice young
couple were becoming more than quite temporarily estranged. Still,
things went so far that _Sophia_ left the cottage where she and
_Arthur_ and a cooing dove had proposed to live the idyllic life of
happiness-ever-after, and betook herself to the mansion of the local
villain; while _Arthur_ cut the throat of the dove (there my sympathies
were with him entirely) and relapsed into nervous breakdown. But
_Denyer_, being only a BUCKROSE villain, which is a very mild variety,
packed _Sophia_ home again; _Arthur_, after the usual crisis, recovered;
and the symbolic dove was the only inmate of the cottage for whom the
little rift remained unhappily permanent. So there you are; with the
gentlest short sermon to wind up, and a blessing to all concerned.
Perhaps I have read stories more briskly entertaining from Mrs.
BUCKROSE'S flowing pen; one feels that her intent here was not solely
laughter. But as a smiling homily, preaching much the same moral t