THE GLEAM. By Mary Forrester. (Hutchinson. 7s. 6d.)—A quiet dignity
and old-world charm prevade this story, which has for its setting a small town with its ancient public school. The town is so intimately and lovingly des- cribed that it casts its spell over the reader, as one feels it has done over the pedagogic, clerical, and other society for which it forms the background. The writer's leisurely method gives her opportunity to introduce us to such diverse characters as the Headmaster and Mrs. Hogben, the gossipy proprietress of the tuck shop. But interest centres in the Headmaster's grand-nephews, the twin sons of the widowed Clare Lamberttin. David and Tristram, widely different in temperament, are eighteen when the story opens and twenty-one when it closes. As a study in adolescence the book is the more convincing because nothing is sacrificed to sensation. The relations be- tween Clare and the two boys arc finely and subtly conceived.
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