TWO AMERICAN WRITERS.
Ada is a book for idle and leisured readers. The author gives the impression of having some occult intellectual standard by which to judge everything ; and her skilful craftsmanship suggests that.some very subtle criticism of life is 'being all the While implied. --But after reading a hundred or so pages of unimportant incident and insignificant dialogue, one cannot resist the conclusion that she is- making much ado about nothing in particular. She writes with a fluent grace ; her characterization is adequate' to a slight theme ;- but, while it would - be unfair to describe the book as positively dull, it cannot be said to have any compelling interest. It is vivacious, but not vital. Ada, a middle-aged and beautiful spinster, after forty odd years of secluded Iife, is bereaved of her mother and seeks distraction from her grief by travelling in Europe. She is wealthy, charming, and endowed with a childlike faith in the integrity of people's motives in seeking her acquaintance. Nanny, the friend who accompanies her, is, on the contrary, shrewd to a fault, inclined to suspect everyone who approaches her charge. On the voyage to England Ada makes friends with a Mr. Pierce, a dilettante:in the arts, afterwards discovered to be a mere dentist. How terrible I Miss Bean, another casual acquaintance, who storms the citadel of Ada's heart, turns out to be a bigamist. Incidents such as these are treated in a vein of sympathetic- comedy, and Ada herself survives them all without pain.
Miss _Canfield's book is_ a collection of rather tame, over- written character-stories, in which that prize bore, local
colour, plays no little part. They are, for the most part, rural comedies and tragedies, mildly flavoured with senti- mental humour.
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