20 JANUARY 1906, Page 20

The Princess and the Kitchen Maid. By Dorothea Deakin. (Chatto

and Windns. 3s. 6d.)—It may be doubted whether it is really possible that any woman should be born with such a genius for domesticity as Maud, the heroine of this book. But the story of the young lady's career as a general servant is decidedly enter- taining. Things, however, go too well with her, and suggest that the situation she takes is in Utopia, not in the suburbs of Man- chester. In real life a young lady who embraced the career of a "general" would probably have fallen in with a much less agree- able mistress than Mrs. Briggs, and would undoubtedly have broken down in health under the extraordinary amount of work so suddenly undertaken. But the little book is freshly and brightly written, and no one ought to expect the aceuracy of an encyclopaedia in an amusing sketch like this.