SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1699, 15 March 1913, Page 12

SOME RECENT FICTION.

RALPH CONNOR'S NEW STORY. Whenever a new Btory by Balph Connor appears it at onco goes to tho front rank amongst the best sellers, not on)' ' in Canada and tho States, but Australia'aAd Now Zealand, where, as any bookseller will tell you, Mr. Connor's stories enjoy a permanent and quite striking popularity. Tho reason is, no doubt, that tho Ecvorend Charles Gordon, for lialph Connor is a minister at Winnipeg, not only has the knack of picking up a good plot, but has tho art of telling a story well, a gift not always accorded lo those who can plan out a strongly dramatic plot. Since "The Sky Pilot ■ and "Tho Han from

Glengarry" established his reputation, this author has written not a few stories, but one and all are as readable as they aro wholesome in moral. Mr. "Gordon's latest book, "Corporal Cameron" (Hodder and Stoughton, per S. and AV. Mackay), has for its principal figuro a young bcotsman, who goes "a mucker" in his native Caledonia, and emigrates to Canada, where, at first, he does not succeed \ery well. 3ulfc & Canadian girl enters mto his life somewhat intimately, and although the hero has a long row of troubles to hoe before he' wins out as our American friends put it, he finally, with the help of an equally transformed Maiidy, becomes "the luckiest man in the world. Mr. Gordon's descriptions of the hero a adventures when a member of the Mounted Police, display a firm command i • i dramatic. A good, wholesome story which tells us much that is new about Canadian life. Those who have enjoyed Ralph _ Connor s previous stories should not. miss Corporal Cameron." TWO NEW AMERICANS. Two new American novels, each in its own way above rather than below tho S rskin e's "The Mountam Girl (Little, Brown and Co.) and nwj i S T) Counsel for the Defence" ? a " 6 an <l Go-), botli per George Robertson and Co. the scene of Payne Erskines story is laid in the mountains of North Carolina, where an uneducated but very charming girl wins the heart of a well-born Englishman, who has found his way to tho Blue Rid»e region in search of health. It is somewhat vieux jeu, by this time, to make the interesting Englishman suddenly inherit a peerage and for his consequent visit to England to be so prolonged that his wife's humble relations taunt her with his apparent desertion. Also, the objection of the new lord's relations to the marriage smacks of _ the cliche. But the plot; if not new, is handled very cleverly, and tho charm of the' girl's frank, fearless trust in lier husband, and the nobility of •her proposed self-sacrifice, make one forgive the somewhat venerable leading motif. The inevitable happy ending will delight the sentimentalist, but it is for the freshness and beauty of the mountain scenes that the story is specially worth reading. In "Counsel for the Defence," the all-too-familiar "graft" clement is again to the fore. A lady lawyer, who is deeply interested in civic reform in New York, is suddenly called home to her native town of Westville, to find her father, a hitherto much respected citizen, charged with having, in an official position, accepted'bribes from a wealthy corporation. How .Kathleen. West fights out to. a finish a long and weary fight against the cunning gaiig' of, "grafters" who have.plotted the ram'of an innocent man, hoi? 6he has to unmask' an: old: lorer, and- how she wins :'a'hiistolnd in ,thfe person of, a, brilliant young editor, is told, in a'vigorouslywritten,' well-planned :narrative; Nevertheless, : .the "graft"' :novel is beginning to pall .' on .non-American, readers.* -7 SHORTER, NOTICES. , Two 'Teceni .additions to - John. Long's Colonial (per Whitcombe's) are "Oiir Alty," by M; E. Francis, and "The' .'Ultimate Conclusion," by A. , FoxDavies... Miss'-Fran,cis ■ (Mrs. Francis Blun'dell) is a woll-prkctised novelist, of whose stories of English rustic life I never tire. "Our Alty" is a pretty little idyll, almost too slight, perhaps, in interest fpr.- a long story.'. Thej heroine, .a V',simple-Hearted country girl, makes the mistake of. preferring,an educated, but weak and-worthless man to a rougher-mannered, but much more sincere and loyal farmer'lover. Honest John Fazackerly gets his brido". in tho end, but poor Alty haß to pass many a miserable day before true lovo conquers. The country scenes are very charming. • • « Mr. Fox-Davies's story has for heroine a rich and well-born lady, who is oertainly most unlucky in her lovo affairs. Sho loves one man, but will not marry, him beoauso his evidence has hanged'another woman. ■ She maries a well-meaning, butquite impossible, parson, .and is terribly unhappy, and then, just when the clerical detrimental has agreed to an "arranged divorce," lover number one dies of heart disease. After this there is nothing left for her to do but to marry an elderly peer whom she knows to be tho father of an illegitimate girl, who is her ward and compimion. A well-told but rather' un-. pleasant rstory. • >.■ ■, >. » • # Miss Martha, otherwise Miss Patty Pink, a middle-aged spinster, is the chief figure in Miss Pendered's wholesome and simple story of English country life, "At lavender Cottage" (Mills and Boon, per Whitcombe's). Miss Pink is in danger of becoming a trifle more than crotchetty— almost soured—when suddenly her brother goes off to Nigeria and leaves her his little son Tony to take care of. This delightfully human boy, a most amusing, and lovablo picklo, gradually changes his aunt's nature, and at the . close :of the story we leave her happily married to a Tcally good fellow, and permanently cured of all her old animosity ag:ainst the stronger sex. The village gossips in .the story, provide eome excellent fun. * * * The heroine of Mrs. P. C. de Cres-! "Five of Spades" (Mills, and Boon, per Whitcombe's), is a loving and'.loyal, wife, who takes iip the task of vindicating the innocence of her husband, who lias been, falsely charged with cheating at : bridge. Alison Armytage is a particularly,' quick-witted woman, and"the way in which; she worms out tho truth is described by: the author both cleverly and convincingly.