Sally Benson is a gentle satirist. She deals no brutal blows that leave ugly bruises, but with greater art strips her subject of all pretences and affectations and lets her stand naked, not as God made her but as time and friends and circumstances have made her. Sometimes the creature that remains is likable, sometimes not, but always she is human and understandable. "She" is used advisably, for Sally Benson is concerned almost exclusively with the female of the species. The male, to be sure, is an important figure in the background, but he plays a secondary role.

In "Emily" …, Mrs. Benson again produces an interesting gallery of female portraits, running in range from that of a girl 16 … to that of a woman of more than sixty…. The stories are slight, the characterization excellent. In the [former] she recalls that desperate stage of youth between childhood and maturity...