is a treachery to her sex, not excusable on grounds of physiological interest; and I, for one, who was loud in my praise of the fine qualities of her great romance, _The Divine Fire_, confess to a sense of almost personal sorrow that such high gifts as hers, which still show no trace of decline in craftsmanship, should have suffered so much taint. I sincerely hope that the noble work she is now doing with the Red Cross at the front--where the best wishes of her many friends follow her--may make more clear the claim that is laid upon her to devote her exceptional powers as a writer to the higher issues of life and death; or, at the least, to something cleaner and sweeter than the morbid atmosphere of her present theme. * * * It has been my private conviction that the most depressing and shuddersome of all natural prospects is the wide expanse of mud and slime to be found at low water in the estuary of a tidal river. Such scenes have always been singularly abhorrent to me. Mr. "ADRIAN ROSS" appears to share this feeling, for out of one of them he has made the novel and very effective setting for his bogie-tale, _The Hole of the Pit_ (ARNOLD). It is a story of the Civil Wars, though these have less to do with the action than the uncivil and very gruesome war waged between the Lord of Deeping Castle and the Unseen Thing that lived in the Pit. The Pit itself is real joy. It was covered always by the tide, but could be distinguished by a darker shadow on the surface of the sluggish stream, a shadow streaked at times by wavering bands of greyish slime, strangely agitated.... There were smells, too, dank, sodden, drowned smells that came in upon the sea mist. Moreover, Deeping Castle I can only describe as an eligible residence for the immortal _Fat Boy_. It was built right upon the water, within convenient distance, as the auctioneers say, of the Pit; and between the two of them your flesh is made to creep more than you would believe possible. As for the great scene where the Thing finally gets out of the Pit, and comes slobbering and sucking round the castle walls--I cannot hope to convey to you the horror of it. Perhaps you may feel with me that Mr. Ross has been at times a little too confident that the undoubted thrill of his bogie would save it from being unintentionally funny. I confess I did laugh once in the wrong place. But everywhere else I shivered with the fearful joy that only the best in this kind can produce. * * *