The Ancient Law. By Ellen Glasgow. (A. Constable and Co.
6s.) —Though written in a different vein from some of Miss Glasgow's other books, none the less this story furnishes very excellent reading. The hero of the novel, which is of American origin, is a man released from a term of penal servitude for misappropriation of trust funds. Daniel Ordway has sinned more through weakness than through deliberate vice, and has derived enormous moral benefit from his punishment. In fact, "Daniel Smith," as he calls himself, is a totally different person from the Daniel Ordway who was condemned to imprisonment. So different is he, indeed, from the man of the ante-punishment days, of whom the author allows us glimpses, that the reader is inclined to doubt the possibility of any such transformation as that of the careless young criminal into the man known as "Ten Commandments Smith." The portion of the story that deals with the little town of Tappahannock is the most interesting, Ord.way's doings when he rejoins his wife and children being narrated in a more conventional spirit. His daughter Alice is, it may be hoped, an almost impossibly irresponsible figure. When, however, she commits forgery, it does not seem to occur to Daniel that heredity has anything to do with her action. The picture of Daniel's wife, Lydia, is one of the most successful in the book, and the author very cleverly makes the reader feel how extraordinarily irritating can be the conduct of a woman known to her circle as a kind of saint. Miss Ellen Glasgow's books are always distinguished by the bestowal of unstinted labour on her writing, and The Ancient Law is no exception to the rule.
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