Beneath the Visiting Moon. By Mary and Jane Findlater. (Hurst
and Blaekett. 7s. 6d. net.) Beneath the Visiting Moon. By Mary and Jane Findlater. (Hurst and Blaekett. 7s. 6d. net.) This book is really two novels in one, the first forty-three chapters being- concerned with one heroine, while the rest of the book deals with her daughter. The tragedy of Barry Lovell, the first heroine, is not as convincing as it should be, as it is very difficult to believe in her seduction by so odious a creature as " the Mauchlyne." The picture of this man, and the extraordinarily sordid conditions under which he lives with his mother and sister in the Edinburgh of thirty years ago, is wonderfully well done. But that even the most eager inquirer into life should have consented to take so repellent a person as her lover alienates-the reader's sympathy from the girl to such an extent that the book is not as inter- esting as the facts depicted would warrant. The second part, which deals with the baby born of the intrigue and subsequent marriage between Barry and " the Mauchlyne," is not drawn in quite such detail ; but Belle, the daughter, is an attractivi! creature, and the accounts of the idealism which she brings to her studies and practice in domestic science are distinctly more interesting than her love affairs. The book is long and carefully written.
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