the result
proves the superfluity of these time-worn accessories. But the cold fact is
that, to me at least, the proof went the other way. From the first I was
painfully aware of a lack of snap about the whole business, and I am more
than suspicious that the author himself may have shared my unwilling
indifference. _Maurice_ was an artistic bachelor, a landowner, a
manufacturer of jam, a twin (with a bogie gift of knowing at any moment the
relative position of his other half, which might have been worked for far
more effect than is actually obtained from it), and a reputation of making
enemies. He had also an unusual neighbour, in the person of a young woman
whose unconventionality led her to perambulate the common at midnight,
playing the first bars of _Solveig's Song_ upon the flute. One night, at
the close of the first chapter, a gun was heard. But you are wrong to
suppose (however naturally) that the flute-player was the victim. It was
_Maurice_. And of course the problem was, who did it. I have told you my
own experience of the working out; nothing written by Mr. BARRY PAIN can
ever be really dull, just as no story starting with a mysterious murder can
lack a certain intrigue; but the fact remains that my wish, heroically
resisted, to look on to the last chapter was prompted more often by
impatience than by any compelling curiosity. Others may be happier.

* * * * *

The author of _A Journal of Small Things_ has done much to make us
understand the sufferings of stricken France and the more intimate sorrows
of war. _Chill Hours_ (MELROSE) deals with that dark period before the end,
when, to some, it seemed all but certain that the will to victory must
fail. Of the three parts of this gracious little book the first consists of
six sketches of life behind the lines, life both gentle and simple, as
affected by war. "Odette in Pink Taffeta," an episode of bereavement, is in
particular exquisitely visualised. "Their Places" and "The Second Hay"
treat, with a quiet intensity of conviction, of the absolutely deadening
absorption, by overwork and anxiety, of peasant wives and children left to
carry on in the absence of their men. The third part is a series of
hospital vignettes. They do not attempt to be too cheery, but they have the
stamp of realised truth. "Nostalgia," the second part, is in another
mood--recalled memories of the beauties of a loved land and of dear common
things affectionat