aff of Learned Clerks._)

I always open a new book by GERTRUDE ATHERTON with a pleasant
grace-before-meat sensation of being already truly thankful for what I
am about to receive. And it is hardly ever that I am disappointed. I do
not mean to tell you that her latest story, which bears the attractive
title _Perch of the Devil_ (MURRAY), will eclipse the record of all that
has gone before; but it need not do that to be well worth reading. It is
a tale of mining life, set against a background of claims and veins and
drifts and ores--things that I for one delight to read about because of
their infinite possibilities, the romance of the gamble that is in them.
There is plenty of this gamble in _Perch of the Devil_ (the mountain
township where the miners lived). _Gregory Compton_, the hero, makes his
pile all right, and has some rare moments in doing it. He would have
been happier if he could have enjoyed prosperity, when it came, for its
own sake and for that of his pretty wife. But, though he bestowed upon
her all the luxuries that successful mining commands--frocks and cars
and European travel--it was another woman, _Ora_, who had his heart. And
unfortunately she was the wife of his partner. It is with this quartette
of characters that Mrs. ATHERTON works out her tale, an unusually small
cast for a story of 373 pages; but you will hardly need to be told with
what sympathetic and subtle skill she depicts them. Her art is, as
always, extraordinarily minute and close. The two women especially are
made to live before us with a great effect of actuality. She has wit,
too, of a dry, rather grim, kind. I liked her comparison of _Gregory's_
emotion on finding himself in love with _Ora_ to that of a small boy
despising himself for a second attack of measles before he discovers the
later complaint to be scarlet fever. You must read this book.

* * * * *

In no industrial survey of the present situation have I seen any
reliable estimate of the probable output of patriotic romance. Yet the
figures seem likely to be impressive. One of the earliest samples is
before me now. It is called _The Gate of England_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON), with the sub-title, _A Romance of the Days of Drake_, and is
in every way true to its admirable type. What I mean by this is that it
contains everything that you expect and are glad to find--a Virgin
Queen, imperious and quick of retort, with a generous eye for the claims
of