25 NOVEMBER 1922, Page 23

ALAS, THAT SPRING-- I By Elinor Mordaunt• (Hutchinson. 7s. 6d.

net.)—Punctuation is a great betrayer. A prodigality in commas has been compared to a too frequent smile in conversation. It loses its significance and tends merely to irritate. Miss Mordaunt's pitfall is a dash. The tragedy of Henrietta Rorke, a young Irish girl who marries a man quite unfitted by heredity and upbringing to give her any happiness, makes in itself a sufficient demand upon the _emotional sympathies of the reader, and something of dignity and impressiveness is lost by the breathlessness, the untidiness of the method of punctuation used throughout.