My own belief in it had to endure two tests, of which the less
was inflicted by a scene specifically placed in a "dim _second class_
carriage" on the L.&N.W.R. in 1916; and the greater by the _cri
de coeur_ of the lady, whose husband surprised her with her lover:
"Edmund, get that murderous look out of your eyes, the look of that
dreadful ancestor in the portrait gallery!" I ask you, does that carry
conviction under the circumstances?
* * * * *
Really, the delight of the publishers over _Cecily and the Wide World_
(HURST AND BLACKETT) is almost touching. On the outside of the wrapper
they call it "charming," and are at the further pains to advise me
to "read first the turnover of cover," where I find them letting
themselves go in such terms as "true life," "sincerity," "charm"
(again), "courage," and the like. The natural result of all which was
that I approached the story prepared for the stickiest of American
cloy-fiction. I was most pleasantly disappointed. Miss ELIZABETH F.
CORBETT has chosen a theme inevitably a little sentimental, but her
treatment of it is throughout of a brisk and tonic sanity, altogether
different from--well, you know the sort of stuff I have in mind.
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