I confess at once that The Uprooters (STANLEY PAUL) is a story that I have found hard to understand.  There seems an idea somewhere, but it constantly eluded me.  To begin with, exactly who or what were the Uprooters, and what did they uproot?  At first I thought the answer was going to name Major and Mrs. Elton, who for no very sufficient reason would go meddling off to Paris, and transporting thence the brother and sister Ormsby to Ireland.  The Ormsbys had been happy and (apparently) harmless enough hitherto, but once uprooted they promptly developed the most unfortunate passions—­reciprocated, moreover—­for their well-wishers.  The obvious and laudable moral of which is, never remove your neighbour from his chosen landmarks.  Later, however, it became apparent that Mr. J.A.T.  LLOYD had a more subtle interpretation for his title in the activities of a band of pacifists, headed by a multi-millionaire, who called himself an American, though somehow his name, Schwartz, hardly inspired me with any feelings of real confidence.  On his death-bed, however, this gentleman reveals blood of the most Prussian blue, confessing that his wealth has actually been derived from the dividends of Frau BERTHA; and as the War has by this time resolved the emotional difficulties of the other characters the story comes to its somewhat procrastinated finish.  My own belief in it had to endure two tests, of which the less was inflicted by a scene specifically placed in a “dim second class carriage” on the L.&N.W.R. in 1916; and the greater by the cri de coeur of the lady, whose husband surprised her with her lover:  “Edmund, get that murderous look out of your eyes, the look of that dreadful ancestor in the portrait gallery!” I ask you, does that carry conviction under the circumstances?

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Really, the delight of the publishers over Cecily and the Wide World (HURST AND BLACKETT) is almost touching.  On the outside of the wrapper they call it “charming,” and are at the further pains to advise me to “read first the turnover of cover,” where I find them letting themselves go in such terms as “true life,” “sincerity,” “charm” (again), “courage,” and the like.  The natural result of all which was that I approached the story prepared for the stickiest of American cloy-fiction.  I was most pleasantly disappointed.  Miss ELIZABETH F. CORBETT has chosen a theme inevitably a little sentimental, but her treatment of it is throughout of a brisk and tonic sanity, altogether different from—­well, you know the sort of stuff I have in mind. Cecily was the discontented wife of Avery Fairchild, a young doctor with three children and a fair practice.  After a while her discontent so increased that she betook herself to the wide, wide world, to live her own life.  And as both she and Avery before long fell cheerfully in love with other persons I suppose the