ter this, _Patuffa's_ papa begins to go quite dreadfully
off the rails, even to the extent of wishing to elope with her governess
and eventually losing all his money and shooting himself. There was also
a famous violinist--well, you can see already that _Patuffa's_ vernal
experiences were on generous lines. It is to the credit of all concerned
that she and her story retain an appreciable charm under adverse
conditions.

* * * * *

Nothing, one would imagine, could promise much more restful reading than
a book that concerns itself with such things as christening robes for
caterpillars, the dyeing blue of white chickens and searches among
Californian lilies and pine-trees for the soul of a hog unseasonably
defunct. But, since this most uncharitable age refuses to believe
anything just because it is told it should, the peaceful pages of _The
Diary of Opal Whiteley_ (PUTNAM) are unfortunately fussed over with a
controversy that no one who reads them can quite escape. Miss WHITELEY'S
diary is presented with every circumstance of solemn asseveration as the
unaided work of a child of seven, only now pieced together by the writer
after quite a number of years. If you care to throw yourself into the
argument you will certainly find heaps of reasons for thinking unkind
thinks, as the writer would say, of the truth of this claim,
particularly in the completeness with which every incident is carried
through various stages to its literary finish; but, if you will be ruled
by me, you will try to forget anything but the book itself, with its
quite charming pictures of many animals and one little girl, their
understanding friend. The quaint idiom in which the diary is supposed to
have been written (or, of course, was written) adds to the delight of a
rather uncommon feeling for nature at its simplest, while the scrapes
for which the small heroine receives (or, you may say, is alleged to
receive) well-deserved punishment preserve the book from ever dropping
into mere mawkishness. A great pity, I think, that it was not published
rather as based on childish memories than as the actual printed script
of a prodigy.

* * * * *

_Moon Mountains_ (HURST AND BLACKETT) is a story which with the best
will in the world I found it impossible to regard wholly seriously. The
greater part of the scene is laid in Darkest Africa, where the father of
the hero, _Peter_ (my hope that the _Pe