Summer Friendships. By Dorothy Muir. Illustrated by Photographs by Ward
Muir. (Grant Richards. 6s.)—There was Jim McClure, who consulted the Contour Road Book and saw to all the practical arrangements, and Betty his wife, lovable, irresponsible Betty; there were Jeannette, thrilled by her first eight of Edinburgh and the Highlands, and her obstreperous schoolboy brother. Then Patrick Kennedy, middle-aged and literary, joined the party, and that nice yotmg brother of Betty's, Kenneth Ogilvie. That was all, unless you include tiny Elspeth McClure, and, later, Miss Armfield, who nearly spoiled the harmony of the picture. And they all, disreputable tramps, went caravanning in Scot- land, and a more delightful, intimate, personal crowd cannot be imagined. Jeannette's mother has published all the letters they wrote to her, together with forty-eight pages of snap- shots; and, in these serious days, we are given the heartache by the reminder of just such holidays as thin, with their happy humour and tentative romance; though we agree with young Teddy that " the plan of having a kid on board isn't very satis- factory." It is difficult to criticize Miss Muir's book without lending it undue weight and importance we are friends with all the caravan, and it does not do to analyse one's friendships. But it is a book which a reviewer might legitimately " skip," and we have read every word.
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