_
("It was in France, you know," and that seems to explain all to _Minella
Drake_, daughter of the Vicar of Goldringham) the heart of a Sussex
taxidermist appears to be exceptionally tender. Seldom can _Tom Murrow_,
through whose eyes we view the scenes and incidents of Mr. Tickner
Edwardes' _Tansy_ (Hutchinson), have sealed up badger or squirrel in its
glass _morgue_ without shedding on the fur some glistening tribute of
tears over a village sorrow. So much of his time in fact is occupied by
conversations of a sentimental nature with the two _Wilverleys_ (whose
aged father, _Mark_, by the way, having retired from active life on his
farm, habitually talks in rhymed couplets) that he can have had as
little leisure for stuffing specimens as he had to discern the love
gradually growing up for him in the bosom of _Minella_, his guileless
_confidante_. The background of _Tansy_ consists in the shepherd's
seasons of the Sussex downs (for _Tansy_, a splendid type of advanced
though rustic womanhood, is a shepherdess), and the plot of the story is
that of _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_, with the convenient variation that
the villain of the piece, having his pockets stuffed with cartridges,
disappears (as villains should) in a cloud of malodorous smoke. Mr.
Tickner Edwardes' knowledge of rural life and scenes is as thorough as
his description of them is charming, and, if the general impression
conveyed by _Tansy_ is a little too idyllic for those who have been
brought up in the rough school of Wessex agriculture, it is pleasant for
a moment to lend ourselves to the illusion of his sunny romance.

Unattractive as _Sophia Ree_ was in many ways, I frankly admit that she
was a lady of mettle. A stockbroker's typist, with a fortune of L2,000
and a salary of a few shillings a week, she no sooner obtained inside
information about the floating of _The South Seas Coastal Rubber
Development Company_ than she decided to apply for 2000 shares. They
were allotted to her, and in consequence she became a most important
person. In fact, she had only to say "_Gugenheim_" to her employers and
she had them at her feet. Why this was so you must discover for
yourselves; all that I, who am no expert in financial matters, can tell
you is that somehow her 2000 shares seem to have given her a position of
enormous power in the company, and that the _Gugenheim_ man wanted to
buy her out. Her sister _Judith_ kept bees and was an extremely good
woman. I neve