SHORTER NOTICES.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1889, 25 October 1913, Page 9

SHORTER NOTICES.

The friendless young lady, well educated, who is thrown upon the cold world of London, and finds it difficult to earn a respectable living, is a very familiar figure in present-day .fiction, Deidre Granville, the heroine of Kathleen Rhodes's story, "The Straight Race" (G. Bell and Sons, per Whitcombo and Tombs), is by turns, a companion, a Bhop girl, and a waitress, before becoming a musical comedy choruß girl, and attracting the unwelcome attentions of a cynically profligate theatrical manager. Later on, when about to marry a very fine fellow, she is made the victim of cruel and unjustifiable scandal. In the end, however, virtue promises to be duly rewarded.

"Dying Fires," by Allan Monkhouse (Duckworth and Co., per Georgo Robertson and Co.), treats with the married life of a well-to-do Manchester cotton spinner and his wife, and the influence on both of the husband's friend, a journalist. The death of their only child leaves an atmosphere of coldness in the Peel household., husband and wife drift apart in their sympathies, and at one time there is a danger of tho friend, being responsible for a complete breaking up of the tio. But tho journalist is too much wedded to his work, too much a celibate at heart, for any wreckage to come through him, and the 6tory ends with husband and wife tactily accepting the inevitable. All three, husband, wife, and friend, "attained an extraordinary skill in avoiding the personal application." There is a subtle and strong psychological flavour about the story, which, in its literary style, is excellent. But it makes but dull reading through its lack of something more than clever analysis of temperaments.

"The Garden of Spices," by Keith Frasor'(Hodder and Stoughton, per S. and W. Maokay), is more a collection of sketches of family life, especially child-life, in Scotland, *than a novel. Elspeth, tho motherless child, who is the principal figure in the hook, is a charming little lassie, and her relatives, friends, and surroundings aro carefully drawn. A strong religious tono runs through the 6kotches which make a wholesome and pleasant, if not very exciting, narrative.