TOWERS ALONG THE GRASS. By Ellen du Pois Taylor. (Heinemann.
7s. 6d.)-A Dakota village is the scene of this very long and original novel ; but anything further removed in spirit from Main Street cannot be imagined. Not that realism is lacking Much of the everyday life of Spearhead, the little prairie town, is vividly presented. But it forms only the background for a story of which irony, fantasy, and poetic feeling are the chief constituents. The tale is told in the first person by Kate Lovett, a dreamy, sensitive girl, who in her early 'teens acquires an instinctive fear of her teacher, Bianca Wells. Bianca-a born " Lady-on-a-Tower " -is descended from a Renaissance witch, and the spirit of witchcraft, in its modern form, resides in herself. Apparently cold, imperious, inscrutable, she is one of those marble queens who carry all before them, flaming at will the hearts of men. Plain, eager, spontaneous Kate thirsts for love ; but every- where the shadow of Bianca's tower darkens her path. At last she decides that the only way of getting even with Bianca is to put her. into a book. Here is the book, and readers with a taste for imaginative and whimsical interpretation will find it a piece of delicate and subtle literary craftsmanship.
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