move could so far be counted a success.  Before, however, the divorce facilities of the land of freedom could bring the tale to one happy ending an accident to Cecily’s motor and the long arm that delivered her to her husband’s professional care brought it to another.  I am left wondering how this denouement would have been affected if Avery had been, say, a dentist, or of any other calling than the one that so obviously loaded the dice in his favour.  I repeat, however, a distinctly well-written and human story, almost startlingly topical too in one place, where Dr. Avery observes, “There’s a lot of grippe in town, and it’s a thing that isn’t reported to the Health Department.”  The obvious inference being that it ought to be. Avery, you observe, had more practical sense than the majority of heroes, few of whom would ever have thought of this, or, at any rate, mentioned it.

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Baroness ORCZY’s romance of old Cambrai, Flower o’ the Lily (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), should not be regarded as in any way bearing upon the more modern history of that remarkable city.  It has nothing to do with our war; it has a war of its own, a rapid affair of bows and arrows, scaling ladders and such desperate situations as can be, and were, saved by the arrival of the right man, single-handed, in the right place at the right moment.  Familiar as is his type in novels of this adventurous kind, I think I shall never tire of the consummate swordsman hero who impersonates, for political and matrimonial ends, a man of infinitely higher degree but far less real worth than himself, handling the vicarious business with an incredible adroitness, but mistakenly carrying by storm the love of the lady for himself.  The lady is so confoundedly attractive in these circumstances, possibly because there is about them a tonic which lends additional colour to the feminine cheek and a new brilliance to the eye.  And, however bitter may be the first moment when the true personalities are divulged, it all comes right in the end.  Here is a story of intrigue and battle and love, written in the necessary phraseology of the time and woven round (and, I trust, consistent with) the historical contest between the Spanish and French Powers, disputing the terrain of Flanders; in every way a worthy successor of The Scarlet Pimpernel.  It is inevitable to suggest that this story should also be dramatised in due course; it would make as a play an instant and irresistible appeal to that great public which loves the theatre most when it is most theatrical.  And it is doubtless destined also for the Movies.

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[Illustration:  SCENE.—­Cologne—­Present Day.

“GIE YE CHOCOLATE! GIE YE CHOCOLATE!! D’YE THINK I’VE BEEN BOBBIN’ UP AN’ DOON IN FRONT O’ YOUR AULD MON FOR FOUR YEARS JUST TAE COME HERE AN’ GIE YE CHOCOLATE?”]