M. J. Farrell's Young Entry …, presumably a first novel, has just those qualities that are more often found in books written by novelists of long experience. The characters, in the first place, are allowed to explain themselves instead of being explained by a process of oratio recta on the author's part; and, secondly, the dialogue springs naturally from the action and is not merely a decorative appendage of it. Miss Farrell has two admirable backgrounds, Ireland and the hunting-field, for her book, which is, in the last analysis, a character study of two "country girls," Prudence and Peter. Both are modern, but sanely and not tiresomely so; and one of Miss Farrell's greatest triumphs is the way she manages to give a vivid sense of their characters through stray snatches of their conversation. The dialogue of modern young people has been a great trial to novelists, who in...