it is--only perhaps less a comedy than a tragedy. _Agnes Tempest_ was
called the Safety Candle, for the ingenious reason that, though
attractive, she burnt nobody's wings. Returning as a middle-aging widow,
after an unhappy wifehood in Africa, she meets on the boat two persons,
_Captain Brangwyn_, a young man, and a girl-mother calling herself
_Antonina Pisa_. Hence the tears. _Brangwyn_ she marries, doubtfully,
half-defiantly, despite the difference in years between them; _Antonina_
is taken as a companion and very soon developes into a sick-nurse. For
in the space between the ship-board engagement and the wedding a railway
accident changes poor _Agnes_ from a still beautiful and active woman to
a nerve-ridden invalid. But in spite of this she and _Brangwyn_ marry;
and (with the much too attractive _Antonina_ always in evidence) you can
guess the result. One odd point; you will hardly get any distance into
Miss E.S. STEVENS' exceedingly well-written story without being struck
by its resemblance to one of Mr. HICHENS' romances. The relative
positions of the members of the triangle, middle-aged wife, young
husband, and girl are exactly those of _The Call of the Blood_; while
the Sicilian setting is identical. But this of course is by no means to
accuse Miss STEVENS of plagiarism; her development of the situation, and
especially the tragedy that resolves it, is both original and
convincing. The end indeed took me wholly unawares, since as a hardened
novel-reader I had naturally been expecting--but read it, and see if you
also are not startled by a refreshing departure from the conventional.

* * * * *

If there still linger in the remoter parts of Cromarty or the Balls Pond
Road certain unsophisticated persons who believe that the stage is one
long glad symposium of wine, woman and song they will be interested to
know that Mr. KEBLE HOWARD has written his latest novel, _The Gay Life_