10 OCTOBER 1896, Page 12

A Darn on a Blue Stocking. By G. G. Chatterton.

(Bellairs and Co.)—Valencia Arbuthnot, seeking to set up for herself as a

painter of portraits, makes acquaintance with a literary man who lodges in the same house. They fall in love, though they hardly know it, or, to put it more correctly, do not know it of each other.

She goes away for a three weeks' visit, and finds on her return that he has engaged himself, more out of pity than love, as a matter of fact, to a girl who has failed to make a living out of typewriting. And she marries a wealthy suitor whom she had rejected in the days of her dependent life. That is all the story, but it is told with much spirit.