ies. Unpleasant but well drawn, all of them.
Mrs. C. A. DAWSON SCOTT has powerfully suggested the atmosphere of
the strange and tragic household, mourning its dead mistress; and she
understands the peculiar quality of the Cornish people and the Cornish
seas. I have not read her other novels, but, if she will promise to
wrestle with one or two rather irritating mannerisms, I will promise
to look out for her next one. I have no prejudice against the Wellsian
triplet of dots, but really Mrs. Scott does overdo it. And a good deal
of her quite penetrating psycho-thingummy was spoiled for me by her
trick of conveying nearly every impression and reflection of her
characters through an impersonal "you" or "one." This means an economy
of words and for a short time a certain vividness, but it soon becomes
tedious. One knows what a tangle you get into if one starts using
"one's" and "you's" in your letters; and you find that the author
has been caught once or twice. However, the story is good enough to
survive that.

* * * * *

The title of _The Lady of The Lawn_ (JENKINS) has "the ornament of
alliteration," but beyond that there doesn't seem to be any particular
reason why Mr. W. RILEY should have chosen it. Certainly in his story
there is an old lady who spends more of the winter on a lawn than any
old lady of my acquaintance could be induced to, even with rugs and a
summer-house to make up for the comforts of the fireside; but _Miss
Barbara_ and her site really have not so much to do with the tale as
its title seems to imply. The love affairs of a young officer who,
while blind from wounds, fell in love with his nurse to the extent of
becoming engaged to her and didn't recognise her when they met again,
are Mr. RILEY'S real concern. _Eric_, who is quite as priggish as
his name suggests, falls in love with his sweetheart, as a lady of
leisure, all over again, and goes through agonies of remorse on
account of his own faithlessness to her as a nurse. _Marion_ or
_Constance_, for she uses two names to help the confusion, lets him
suffer a while for the good of his soul, but the happy ending, the
promise of which is breathed from every line of the book, is duly
brought about. His publisher asserts that "there is no living author
who writes about Yorkshire as does Mr. RILEY." I daresay he is quite
right, but at least as far as the present book is concerned I don't
think that I should have bothered to