SKIN-DEEP. By Naomi Royde-Smith. (Constable. 7s. 6d.)—Lucinda Moreton and the
Duke of Merioneth marry for reasons of convenience, Lucinda being ambitious and the Duke desiring, for political purposes, a beautiful Society favourite. Neither loves the other, and their wedded life is early interrupted by liaisons. The Duke's craving for an heir prompts him to father Lucinda's illegitimate son as well as the twin daughters of her illicit passion. Incidentally, Lucinda's supposed son is revealed not to be Lucinda's after all, _ but the love-child of her Welsh maid, Caradoc, who has' substituted the boy for her mistress's own. girl baby. In a very realistic way Miss Royde-Smith describes the reefs and currents beneath the placid surface of life at Merioneth House, and in particular she follows the pathetic attempts of the ageing Duchess to retain the beauty that first attracted the young Gervase Moore, who remains the one real passion of her life. Miss Royde-Smith's humour is incisive, yet softened by pity ; and her ingenuity serves to give an un- expected final twist to the inevitable tragedy of beauty that is only "skin-deep" and relies on massage, rest cures, and patent wrinkle-eradicators.
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