BRAVE JANET REACHFAR

Jane Duncan takes the Janet Reachfar of her innumerable ladies' novels back to her rural Scottish childhood, with a spring snowstorm that sends the boys out to bring in the sheep from the Heights. But there are more of the flock on the East Hill, and when Janet goes off secretly to rescue them, she discovers a baby lamb and stays with it until her older brothers Fred her huddled in the snow. The adventure will be less than compelling to those who are unacquainted with Janet, tho it does derive some starch from Granny, who ""was always bustling about and 'laying down the law' or being 'on about' things""--at which times ""they did not call her 'Granny'. . . they called her 'herself.'"" Like the author, Hedderwick gives us some nice homey sketches of the plain family but otherwise her flat pale scenes, all dappled over with swirling snow, offer nothing but an incessant reminder of the weather.