There is
no exaggeration; the writing goes true to its mark, and the effect designed
by the writer is admirably well made. Then _Uncle Matthew_ dies and
_Rachel_ finds a new home in the Vicarage of _Mr. Venning_, a family man if
ever there was one, for he has fifteen children. From this point the
interest is slightly diluted, and the excellence of the book diminishes.
One does not recognise in the more mature _Rachel_ the girl one had
expected to find after one's initiation into the secrets of her baby mind.
She marries _Edward Venning_, and finds too late that he is, like his
father, made up of convention and narrowness. She plans a disappearance,
and leaves some of her belongings on the edge of a bottomless tarn. Then,
being hypothetically dead, she begins to live her life in her own way.
Later on she returns to _Edward_, "on approval for six months"; but this
period was apparently not sufficient to break the chain that bound her to
Another, and, the War intervening, she is left almost doubly widowed. I
feel that I have not quite done justice to Miss VAUGHAN'S book, but, on the
other hand, I am sure that she has not quite done justice to her
unquestionable talent.
* * * * *
A volume entitled _Friends of France: The Field Service of the American
Ambulance_ (SMITH, ELDER) has appeared in a happy hour to remind one, if
that were necessary, that in the great nation that awaits Mr.
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