FAITH, HOPE, NO CHARITY

A Cockney girl, daughter of an ostler, who becomes maid to a lovely and ill-fated dancer, is the central figure of this first novel, which indicates that the writer has the gift of breathing life into her simple people, and of making their emotions poignantly vital. The novel just misses being as important as the English critics indicate -- perhaps it may strike a more familiar chord to the English reader than the American, but, to this reader, the denouement somehow fell a bit flat, the plot thinned out, and failed to live up to the characterization. None the less, a book which deserves more than passing interest.