to be wholly commonplace, but I am bound to admit that there is at least one of the collection (which, pardon me, I do not mean to name) that makes a notable effort in that direction.  Also there are two of which one can honestly say that no other pen could have written them with anything like such finished art—­The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat, which one might call a fantasia upon Publicity, and (to my mind the best thing in the volume) My Son’s Wife, an exquisitely humorous and cunning study in the Influence of Landed Estate upon a Modern.  If this definition strikes you as obscure, read the story and you will understand.  For the rest, as I said above, all tastes are catered for; so that the rival schools who admire Mr. KIPLING most as the creator of Plain Tales, or Stalky or Puck, will each receive encouragement and support; while, if there be those who prefer the pot-boiler undisguisable, they too will not find themselves altogether neglected.

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I do wish our publishers would grasp the great truth that praise of their own wares needs (to say the least of it) most careful handling.  What they, or some anonymous admirer, say on the cover of The Worn Doorstep (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is that they should like to shout its merits from the housetop.  Possibly; but let me protest that it is for me, and not for them, to do the shouting, if any; which said, I will proceed to admit that the book is one of considerable charm.  It is told in the form of letters (never to be posted, since they are from a young wife to her soldier-husband, presumed to have been killed before the opening of the book).  Miss MARGARET SHERWOOD thus reverts to a convention more popular some few years ago than with our present-day romanticists.  The matter of her tale shows how the young wife in question found consolation in befriending others, especially in the love affairs of a Belgian refugee couple, to whom she opens her home and heart.  A very pretty idea, developed with many dainty and amiable touches.  Perhaps (I set down no dogmatic verdict on the point) the cynical or impatient may find its sweetness something too drawn out.  On the other hand, there are many “gentle readers,” probably a vast majority, to whom its appeal will prove entirely successful.  And as they can be trusted to spread its merits in the right quarters there will be no need for the publishers to shout, either from the house-top or anywhere else, which (as I suggested above) is as it should be.

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