nothing in particular over a good many chapters. We are halfway
through before _Derek_ takes the plunge, and then we find, him, not
in the slums of some industrial quarter, but in Western Canada, where
class distinctions are founded less on soap than on simoleons. At the
end of the volume the War has "bruk out," and our hero, apart from
having led a healthy outdoor life and chivalrously married and been
left a widower by a pathetic child with consumption and no morals,
is just about where he started. I say "at the end of the volume," for
there I find a publisher's note to the effect that in consequence
of the paper shortage the further adventures of our hero have been
postponed to a subsequent volume. It is to be entitled _The Strong
Hours_, and will doubtless provide a satisfactory _raison d'être_ for
all the other people who did nothing in particular in Vol. I.

* * * * *

If you had numbered _Elizabeth_, the heroine of _A Maiden in Malaya_
(MELROSE), among your friends, I can fancy your calling upon her to
"hear about her adventures in the East." I can see her delightedly
telling you of the voyage, of the people she met on board (including
the charming young man upon whom you would already have congratulated
her), of how he and she bought curios at Port Said, of her arrival, of
her sister's children and their quaint sayings, of Singapore and its
sights, of Malaya and how she was taken to see the tapping on a rubber
plantation--here I picture a gleam of revived interest, possibly
financial in origin, appearing in your face--of the club, of dinner
parties and a thousand other details, all highly entertaining to
herself and involving a sufficiency of native words to impress the
stay-at-home. And perhaps, just as you were considering your chance of
an escape before tea, she would continue "and now I must tell you all