CRESSIDA—NO MYSTERY. By Mrs. Belloc Lowndes. {Heinemann. 6s.)—Opinions will differ,
temperamentally, about the closing chapters of this novel. Some readers will like the melodramatic ending. But others (and these, in our own judgment, will be right) will feel that the final tragedy is out of keeping with the characters involved, and spoils what is other%vise a delightfully natural picture of a country- house party during a single Christmas week. Jealousy sometimes leads to poisoning, we know. But the plain, stolid Elizabeth Bowden does not, for all her fierce possessive- ness, convince us as being the type of girl to use this method of ridding herself of her beautiful, sensual, selfish rival. Nor do we think that her crime could go so easily unsuspected and undetected. Be that as it may, the major part of the story deserves warm praise. Few writers describe society life better than Mrs. Lowndes.
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