4 DECEMBER 1909, Page 41

The Florentine Frame. By Elizabeth Robins. (John Murray. 13s.)—The situation

in which a mother and daughter are in love with the same mau is never very attractive, and it needs consummate tact in the handling. Miss Robins takes this for the theme of her new book, a book which is purely American in character and the scene of which passes in and near New York. Whether any man could misunderstand the woman he loves so seriously as Chester Keith did may be doubted. It is to be hoped, however, that most men if they did so would not contract a marriage with the daughter for the sake of keeping near the mother. Miss Robins solves the problem in the only possible way—by the death of her elder heroine—but the reader

will not feel very sanguine as to the prospects of happiness which lie before the Chester Keiths.