the heroine, got herself engaged to _Dick_ than the arrival of
auburn-tressed _Sheila_ so dazzled the youth that in less time than it
takes to write he had called the engagement off and prepared to marry
the new-comer. However, to square matters, _Sheila_ now jilted him;
whereupon he fled back to _Julia_ (meanwhile, though he knew it not,
legatee of twelve thousand a year) and promptly married her. Which was
entirely satisfactory, save from the view-point of Miss LOUISE HEILGERS,
who was left with her hero and heroine united and the whole affair at an
end before she had passed Chapter XII. Here however intervened a very
touching instance of filial piety. Springing to the rescue of her
author, and with no other possible motive or excuse than that of helping
Miss HEILGERS towards a publishable six-bobs-worth, the resourceful
_Julia_ determined to think that _Dick_ had married her for the money of
whose existence he was palpably unaware. He, on his part, not to be
outdone, played up to the situation thus created with a lunatic
behaviour that gave it the support it wanted. I need not, of course,
insult your intelligence with any indication of the end. A happy,
flagrantly artificial little comedy of manners, as exhibited by the
characters in polite pre-war fiction, and nowhere else.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Resigned Patriot_. "DO WE DRAW FOR THIS, MY DEAR?"]

* * * * *

INTENSIVE WARFARE IN PALESTINE.

"On a front of fourteen yards, this position extends by a series of
redoubts and trenches eleven miles south-east of Gaza."--_Isle of