In _Uncle Pierce's Legacy_ (METHUEN) Mrs. DOROTHEA CONYERS gives us once more all that we have learned to expect of her novels: the friendly, witty, blundering servants; the hunting society in which wealth and poverty, breeding and vulgarity, cheerfully rub shoulders; the descriptions of the wistful beautiful West of Ireland in autumn and winter; and above all the horses. Added to all this there are Sinn Fein raids, real and imaginary, to bring things up to date. A rather unconvincing plot, with a dash of _Great Expectations_ in it, yet offers a situation which has plenty of amusing possibilities. _Honor_ and _Evie Nutting_, two middle-aged spinsters, find themselves the possessors of eight thousand a year, on condition that they spend it all. That sounds, of course, a very pleasant arrangement; but they have been struggling for years to make ends meet and economy has become a habit. The end of the first quarter finds them sending _Harris_, the English manservant, in haste to buy a frying-pan with the last unspent three shillings and sixpence. That the _Uncle Pierce_ of the title should be really a brother, that characters should change their names without rhyme or reason from paragraph to paragraph, and that inverted commas should make their appearance just anywhere--all this, I think, is the author's clever way of suggesting an atmosphere of Irish irresponsibility, and it is quite successful. _Uncle Pierce's Legacy_ is a pleasant tale most pleasantly told, and it is not Mrs. CONYERS' fault, but her misfortune (and ours), that novels which describe the lighter side of Irish life, even with the tenderest humour, are more likely just now to make one sigh than smile. * * * * *