EVOE.

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[Illustration: "HERE'S ONE I'M SURE YOU'LL LIKE, TREVOR."

"WHAT IS IT?"

"_ROBINSON CRUSOE_."

"IN WHAT LANGUAGE?"]

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)

Just as one may say of certain novelists that they write at the top
of their voices, so, I think, one might describe Miss VIOLA MEYNELL
as writing in a whisper. This certainly is the effect that _Modern
Lovers_ (SECKER) produced upon me. The gentle method of it invested
the story--which of itself is a very slight thing--with an odd
significance almost impossible to communicate in criticism; but the
reading of a few pages will show you what I mean. The title is apt
enough, for the tale is about nothing but love, as it affects a group
of five young people, three men and two girls. Of the girls, who are
sisters, _Effie Rutherglen_ is the more important and detailed figure.
_Effie_, in the time before the story opens, had an affair with