If you had numbered _Elizabeth_, the heroine of _A Maiden in Malaya_ (MELROSE), among your friends, I can fancy your calling upon her to "hear about her adventures in the East." I can see her delightedly telling you of the voyage, of the people she met on board (including the charming young man upon whom you would already have congratulated her), of how he and she bought curios at Port Said, of her arrival, of her sister's children and their quaint sayings, of Singapore and its sights, of Malaya and how she was taken to see the tapping on a rubber plantation--here I picture a gleam of revived interest, possibly financial in origin, appearing in your face--of the club, of dinner parties and a thousand other details, all highly entertaining to herself and involving a sufficiency of native words to impress the stay-at-home. And perhaps, just as you were considering your chance of an escape before tea, she would continue "and now I must tell you all about the dreadful time I had in the rising!" which she would then vivaciously proceed to do; and not only that, but all about the dreadful time (the same dreadful time) that all her friends had in the same rising, chapters of it, so that in the end it might be six o'clock or later before you got away. I hope this is not an unfair _résumé_ of the impression produced upon me by Miss ISOBEL MOUNTAIN'S prattling pages. To sum up, if you have an insatiable curiosity for the small talk of other people's travel, _A Maiden in Malaya_ may not prove too much for it. If otherwise, otherwise. * * * * *