The World and Winslow. By Edith Henrietta Fowler. (Hodder and
Stoughton. 6s.)—There is something pleasant about this book, even though the slight thread of story is too thinly drawn out, and the characters are not strong enough to bear all the interest. "The world" is represented by a Cabinet Minister's family and friends, and we are given glimpses of London parties, 'tea on the Terrace," and such-like dissipations, in contrast to the homely doings of the inhabitants of the little West Country town of Winstow. The connecting link is Merton Wainwright, who has the faculty, so necessary to a modern hero, of passing examinations, and who rises from his father's draper's shop and the Winstow Grammar School to a Civil Service clerkship. He soon grows ashamed of his worthy but bouncing relations, and neglects his first love, Ursula Grey ; but in the end the tables are turned on him, and Ursula marries happily and he is left lamenting, greatly to our satisfaction. There is much conscien- tiousness in Miss Fowler's style,—even the society butterflies are labelled with the careful accuracy of museum specimens. Each person seems to feel the responsibility of living up to his or her own character. She says herself : "Mr. Mandeville was so states- manlike, and Lady Clementina so easy, and Victoria so amusing," and we might add, Ursula and Mr. Carpenter so unselfish, Merton so self-centred, and so on. Mrs. Wainwright, however, is really nice ; she is a comfortable, stout, motherly old body, and is oppressed neither by duty nor fashion.
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