I have often wondered why so few novelists select the English Lake District as a fictional setting. I wonder still more after reading _Barbara Lynn_ (ARNOLD), in which it is used with fine and telling effect. Miss EMILY JENKINSON'S previous story showed that she had a rare sympathy with nature, and a still rarer gift of expressing it. _Barbara Lynn_ does much to strengthen that impression. It is a mountain tale, the scene of which is laid in an upland farm, girt about by the mighty hills and the solitude of the fells. Here, in the dour old house of Graystones, is played the drama of _Barbara_ and her sister _Lucy_; of _Peter_, who loved one and married the other; of the feckless _Joel_, and the old bed-ridden great-grandmother, who is a kind of chorus to it all. Practically these five are the only characters. Of them it is, of course, _Barbara_ herself who stands out most prominently, a figure of an austere yet wistful dignity, of whom any novelist might be proud. I should hazard a guess that Miss JENKINSON writes slowly; one feels this in her choice of words and her avoidance (even in the final tragic catastrophe) of anything approaching sensationalism or melodrama. When all, is said, however, it is for its descriptions that I shall remember the book. The hot summer, with the flocks calling in the night for water; the storm on the slopes of Thundergray; and the end of all things (which, pardon me, I do not mean to tell)--these are what live in the reader's mind. _Barbara Lynn_, in short, is an unusually imaginative novel, which has confirmed me in two previous impressions--first, that Miss EMILY JENKINSON is a writer upon whom to keep the appreciative eye; secondly, that Westmorland must be a perfectly beastly country to live in all the year round. Both of which conclusions are sincere tributes. * * * * *