This pleasing group does not
portray an actual scene from _Autumn_ (LANE), but is rather to be
taken as symbolic of the atmosphere of Miss MURIEL HINE'S latest book.
The faun, I imagine, stands for _Rollo_, the middle-aged lover of the
country, into whose happy life other, more human, loves break with
such devastation. What the rabbits mean is a more difficult problem. I
jest; but as a matter of fact I should be the first to admit that Miss
HINE has written a story that, despite a certain crudity of colouring,
is both unconventional and alive. The attitude of the characters
towards their parents, for example, is at least original. _Deirdre_,
the heroine, frankly despised her mother, to whom she owed a marriage
with the man whom she hated. The gift of a country cottage enabled
her to escape from him to rabbits (figurative) and the simpler life.
There, however, she fell in with _Rollo_, who loved her at sight,
and whose daughter, _Hyacinth_, adored her father, but quite blandly
deceived him about her own amorous adventures. A pretty tangle, you
observe, and I am not sure that I can wholly acquit the author of
some cowardice in her manner of cutting it.
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