13 DECEMBER 1902, Page 21

Leslie Farquhar. By Rosaline Masson. (John Murray. 6s.)— There is

plenty of good work in this book. Both Leslie and her father are finely drawn figures, and so are the two curiously different women,—Mrs. Ogilvy, who may stand for tragedy, and Lady Tavendale, with her air of genteel comedy. We have a word of counsel for Miss Masson. Whatever she does or does not, let her 'hake her stories quite plain. The average reader, whom, after all, she is bound to consult, does not like conundrums. And it is something of a conundrum when we ask what Leslie was really looking for when she came so near to being lost on the snow-covered moor. Perhaps we may add a very old piece of advice,—" Verify your references." Queen Elizabeth did not say: "My cousin Mary has a bonny bairn, and I am a barren woman." "A barren stock" is not quite the same thing.