Books.

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 28, 25 January 1929, Page 13

Books.

COME BY CHANCE

(Mrs.

Alfred

Sidgwick

A SIMPLE. tale, this last one of the prolific writer, Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick, and innocuous withal, making pleasant reading for those who like their facts watered down and calculated to induce not too strenuous refiection, Nan Sothern’s mother left her husband for an unlawful lover, and Nan had to a large extent ta fend for herself from an early age. Some doubt sted as to her paternity, so the ind and deserted spouse boarded out the' baby with some rough but kind Cornish folk, who allowed her to run riot, wear disreputable attire, and speak in the broadest -of dialects, to the horror of an elderly aunt who ran her to earth in her happy ‘habitation beside the sea, Then came a few years .of school and an experience of grey and sordid lodgings.in London, with a mother and daughter who.aped gentility and starved the child entrusted to them, At sixteen Nan was a pupil teacher in an establishment where her poverty was derided and her doubtful parentage thrust upon her in the unkindly way of the world. From this she runs off, and adventure, more interesting if less respectable, begins, She joins her mother, ag lovely lady entirely untroubled by inconvenient ‘conventions, and the misyess of an Italian count, of unlimited vans and ungovernable temper. The three travel in ease. and opulence on the. Continent, and to Nan they are kind, until a day comes when the indolent, extravagant, imperturbable Leila, whose amiability nothing disturbs; provokes her protector te wrath by flagrant infidelity, well-merit-ed vengeance descends upon her, and she and her daughter are left in the lurch. Undismayed, the scorner of the moralities pursues her untrammelled way, finding consolation with enviable celerity. Meantime seventeen-year-old Nan has made a friend, a nice young man, to whom she is offered, with a dowry of £5000, by the social derelicts who are her sorry protectors. Julian Hay, however, refuses the bribe and the bride, goes his own way, but turns up at the end of the story in the dear old way,. to offer his home d heart to the poor, pretty, stranded English girl, Willingly she accepts, poor child, having come through great tribulation; and he is strong and kind, and finds it no difficult feat to win her young and eager love. This is what used to be called a "nice little story," and one warranted to pass the time on the long train or

* bus journey home.

R.U.

R.