15 AUGUST 1903, Page 24

Beggar's Manor. By R. Murray Gilchrist. (W. Heinemann. 6s.)—Mr. Gilchrist

has chosen a disagreeable subject, and treated

it with adequate taste and skill. An untaught, ill-brought-up lad is taken by the coarse beauty of a girl older than himself, and finds out too late what love really means. The way out of the difficulty might have been more happily contrived; as it

stands, it is somewhat rough, not to say brutal. Annabella is a charming figure; Mr. Gilchrist has not accomplished anything better. The portrait of the vicar is a commonplace caricature. It might have come out of the " Novelists' Complete Picture Gallery." The young squire's " seven sleepers " are a very curious company, and seem to fit a patriarchal ago that, here at least, is in a very remote past.