25 JULY 1908, Page 23

Rose MacLeod. By Alice Brown. (A. Constable and Co. 6s.)—

The real heroine of this book is neither Rose MacLeod nor Electra Fulton, who are both young women, but Madata Fulten, Electra's grandmother. The interest of this lively lady's eharacter is so great that the story of the doings of the young people will not be welcomed by the reader, for they interrupt his study of Electra's delightful ancestress. The spirited manner in which Madam Fulton electrifies America by her book of reminis- cences, most of which are entirely apocryphal, will give the reader no small respect for her intellect, and she is altogether so bright and attractive a figure that her death at the end of the story will be felt almost as a personal loss. A pendant to Madam Fulton is her elderly lover, Billy Stark ; and compared with these two brilliantly drawn characters, the rest of the dramatis personae will be found rather shadowy and indistinct. But the plot is interesting and well carried through, and the America described in the book is the intimate domestic America, not that sensational land racked by dramatic catastrophes and inhabited only by millionaires of which we have lately read so often.