A love story of Protestant middle classes. Scene: near the Shannon Weir and Falls of Donass, Co. Limerick. Two girls become engaged to two men rather through force of circumstances than for love. Problem: are the circumstances such as to justify Mary in marrying the man she does not love. In a strange way it comes about that each girl marries the other’s fiancé, and finds happiness. Not without improbabilities, but lively and piquant in style. Irish flavour and humour provided by Mrs. Mack, the housekeeper, and Constable Keogh. By same Author: _The Dreams of Dania_, _Love has no Pity_, &c. ⸺ MACK THE MISER. Pp. 125. (_Elliott Stock_). 1907. A tale of middle class Protestant life in Limerick, turning on the vindication of the supposed miser’s character by a young girl. The tendency of the book is moral and religious. =LANGBRIDGE, Rosamond.= Dau. of preceding. B. Glenalla, Donegal. Brought up and ed. privately in Limerick. Has contributed short stories and articles to the MANCHESTER GUARDIAN and to other periodicals. Her attitude towards Ireland has been expressed in a fine passage worthy to be quoted. “Nationalist by sympathy and inclination, but not by contact or association, and belonging to no particular party or clique she [the Author] believes in Ireland as the Land of Spiritual Happiness; as the Land which has kept itself innocent, religious, and vividly individualistic, in face of the wave of undistinguishable sameness which is engulfing all national idiosyncrasy, and tends towards becoming the Esperanto of the soul. Ireland she believes in as the Child-Soul amongst nations, not to be deceived or bought, but perceiving and desiring with incorruptible ingenuousness those things which alone make individual, as well as national life worth while: Faith and Freedom before Subordination and Sophistication, and the Traffic of the Heart to the Traffic of the Mart.” Their necessary brevity must give to the following notes an impression of want of sympathy. They scarcely do full justice to all the qualities of the books. ⸺ THE FLAME AND FLOOD. Pp. xii. + 339. (_Fisher, Unwin_; _First Novel Library_). 1903. A love-story. The lovers marry other people _not_ for love. It is only the presence of a child that prevents the heroine from leaving her husband for her lover. There are accordingly curious situations, but nothing positively immoral in the tone. The story is well constructed. Scene: partly in Ireland, partly in England. ⸺ THE THIRD EXPERIMENT. Pp. 300. (_Fisher, Unwin_). 1904.