LOST KINNELLAN. By Agnes Mure Mackenzie. (Heinemann. 7s. 6d. net.)—There
is a delicate charm about the opening of this story of a man mismated, which is not improved by the extremely melodramatic final section. Miss Mure Mackenzie's talent lies in the vivid presentment of the wild coast scenery of Eastern Scotland and in the descrip- tive passages, which make one almost feel and taste the salt sea foam borne on the gusts of the north wind. The characters, too, are life-like and well contrasted. The old crippled laird, " Kinnellan," with his son Gilbert Keith, who has made a dull and conventional marriage, are real people, as is the unfor- tunate, but good-natured, Bertha, Gilbert's wife, whose only fault is not to fit her surroundings. Naturally, when Anne Ogilvie, the ward of Kinnellan, arrives with convent- bred fineness and intuitive sympathy, Gilbert falls a victim to her charm. The -last chapters, however, take on an air of unreality. The book would be a really good piece of work were it not for a jerk, which seems to divide it into two in- harmonious sections. Incidentally the curious in matters of criminal law may here conveniently study the differences between English and Scotch procedure.
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