Different Drummers. By Evelyne E. Rynd. (Country Life Library. 3s.
6d.)—Mrs. Rynd gives the above name to a very remarkable little collection of sketches or stories on many different subjects. There is enough literary talent in this small volume to have furnished a good many of the novels which are poured out weekly from the press to satisfy the enormous appetite for fiction which is one of the features of the present day. The reader who comes across this book in an ordinary " Mudie " box will discover that he has lighted upon a very different class of goods from that which be is accustomed to find. The stories are mostly sombre in tone, and one of the cleverest and most striking is a short account of a Russian girl called " Sania" at school. It is a sketch very remarkable for its suggestiveness, and even if it is not actually true to nature, it is at any rate a most pregnant allegory of the character of the people of Russia. The story called "Rosellen," again, is interesting, even if the figure of Miss Travers is a little exaggerated, and the same may be said of the tale of Fanny, Rebecca and the district visitor. Mrs. Rynd has great literary grip and power of expression, and proves in this collection that her serious moods are as interesting to her readers as the vein she exploited in "The Riggleses."
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