has long ere this established herself as a specialist
of repute in Irish sporting tales. You will need but one look at the
picture wrapper of _The Financing of Fiona_ (ALLEN) to see that a
repetition of the same agreeable mixture awaits you within. _Fiona_ was a
charming young woman (Irish, of course) with a rich uncle and a poor, very
unattractive cousin, who loved her for her expectations. As _Fiona_ had no
conception about money beyond the spending of it, the uncle made a will,
whose object was that she should have plenty. The suitor, however, knowing
of this, and being a naughty, rather improbable person, destroyed part of
it, with the result that _Fiona_ was apparently left only the ancestral
home and no cash to keep it up. So she was forced to take in gentleman
boarders for the hunting, and (for propriety's sake) to invent a mythical
chaperon, who lived above stairs. And, after all, she needn't have done any
such thing, because the rich uncle, in leaving her all the contents of the
mansion, had foolishly forgotten to mention a secret drawer full of
Canadian securities. As for the villain, I really hardly dare tell you the
impossibly silly way in which he allowed himself to be caught out. But of
course all this melodrama is not what matters. The important thing about
Miss CONYERS' people is that (whatever their private worries) a-hunting
they will go; and _Fiona_, financed by her paying guests, shows in this
respect as capital sport as any of her predecessors. For the rest, I can
hardly say with honesty that the story is equal to its author's best form.

* * * * *

What I like particularly about Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN is the friendly way in
which he contrives to make his readers and himself into a family party. "We
must," he writes at the beginning of a chapter in _Cinderella of Skookum
Greek_ (NASH), "get a move on with the story, in case you become more tired
of Archer's compound fracture than he was himself." This is by no means the
only occasion on which he shows his thoughtfulness for us, and I think it
very kind and nice of him. At the same time I will ungraciously admit that
the weak point of his story is that it does not move quite fast enough.
Admirable artist in psychology and atmosphere, his plot, if you can call it
a plot, is very slight. _Cyrus Archer_, the young American of the compound
fracture (who had my sympathy from the start because he could never
remember dates), goe