4 DECEMBER 1897, Page 11

A Pot of Honey. By Susan Christian. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—

There is a strange sort of pessimism about this tale. It is a story of the ironies of fate. So much we can see, though we must own that there is much that we do not understand,—what is meant, for instance, by a young woman's face being "as a wan, unserutably profane mask," or what Mr. King, the popular preacher, was ? He looks like an intolerably impertinent cad. "He put

his arm round her shoulder 'You are not worth it,' he said in his clear normal voice ; and he took away his arm and pushed her quite gently from him." And she did not box his ears. Is it possible that Miss Christian does not know what she means herself ?