11 JULY 1925, Page 46

Hirelle. By Henrietta Leslie. (Leonard Parsons. 7s. 6d. net.)—The portion

of this novel which is not mystical deserves to be called a very competent comedy of manners. But the obsessing. ancestress is really too difficult to believe in. The mystically minded young Australian who works on old books in the picture gallery might possibly have fallen under a ghostly infatuation—but that Eric Walpole Hall, a typical and not very young worldly litterateur should also have succumbed is really incredible. The novel is otherwise decidedly attractive, and the two backgrounds—an English country house and Corsica—are extremely well drawn.