HUE AND CRY

The nobility of love and nature are again at the heart of a new novel by a well-established women's writer. The young heroine, Melody, is deaf, and finds a means of comfort and communication in nature as well as in her father's loving teaching. But it is Dan, a young Irish immigrant in the New Hampshire farmlands, who-disillusioned with life and his treatment at the mills- has stolen a fine stallion and is shielded by Melody with whom, in return, he falls in love. In the warmth of Melody's family, Dan loses his bitterness and eventually with Melody's brother Rufus returns the stallion and works off his debt. The reward for the capture goes to Rufus, who gains in stature by giving this money to Melody so that she may attend a school for the deaf in Boston. And after a year, the lovers meet once again, changed- but unchanged in their feelings for each other. Morals as clean as the Monday wash on the line, with a refreshing simple-sweet quality which a conservative, rental audience has found beguiling.