15 SEPTEMBER 1923, Page 19

This is a quiet, bitter story of much power. It

relates, from youth to old age, the tragic life of an old maid in the wilds of Canada. The frost bites in every page. Gradually a warm heart is frozen and she goes out of her mind. A moment's compunction leads the author to spare her creation at the last. Her madness is of a happy type. Meanwhile, the reader can but admire the literary skill which draws a blind over the sun and keeps the reader spellbound and shivering.