Miss MURIEL HINE in _The Individual_ (LANE), essaying a problem novel, does not disdain the old-fashioned way of the woven plot and the dramatic incident. Her hero, _Orde Taverner_, surgeon by trade and eugenist by profession, falls in love with _Elizma_, a Cornish beauty and rare fiddler. His inquiries as to her eugenical fitness having been answered satisfactorily but inaccurately, he marries, to find that _Elizma's_ mother really died insane. His principles conquer his desire for children, and his decision is communicated to the fiery _Elizma_, who, fierce maternalist that she is and coming of a wild stock that never stuck at anything, undertakes a desperate flirtation by way of solving the difficulty in her own heroic way--at least you will certainly make this kind of a guess, but on investigation you may find that you've been wrong! Happily in the end a deathbed confession proves the second version of her birth as inaccurate as the first. She really comes of quite untainted stock, so the eugenist is satisfied and husband and wife reconciled. That is to say the author runs away from her problem, which was perhaps, all things considered, the wisest thing to do. She has some eye for character and has made a good thing of her _Elizma_, but has let herself scatter her energies over a team too large to be driven with a sure hand. And why, oh why did she drag in the War? Or call her butler _Puffles_? But she keeps the interest of her story going, and you mustn't skip or you may be set off on a hopelessly wrong tack. * * * * *