RITA'S LATEST NOVEL

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1923, Page 19

RITA'S LATEST NOVEL

The Un»rown-L>." By "Rita" (Mrs. Desmond Humphreys). - London and New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, .Ltd. ,

Kita's agreeable style and refreshing vivacity are conspicuous in this her latest novel. It is written mainly in the form of a diary, that of Philistia Hornbeam, beginning in 19J0, an d closing somewhere about 191 S. Philistia is 13 when she writes in her diary, and on its first page: "I have the misfortune to posses* a htfry father, as well as being

overcast by mid-Victorian prejerdices. (Dam the dickshinary,. wher is it?)" and she ends the last with: "I am too happy to write much." All she writes after that is^ a few lines of conversation with her father (a rather trying kind of man) in which she tells him that she is "twen-ty-one—and three months," and he replies : "Yes, child. You have grown up at last." There is an ail of mystery about the honielife of Philistia, and this is difficult for the reader to reconcile with the quite, normal Victorian setting of the family. Philistia's quiet, respectable mother is in league with a German spy, who is a fascinating man with women, and so probability is taughtened up by Rita to its snaoping point. However, the spying and its sequel is all in tha/story. Incidentally, Rita makes Phihstia say some hard things about the war-flapper, the girl of her own age and time, as for instance: "She had persecuted youth in her 'white-feather crusade' ; now she painted her face and powdered her ' nose and wore the shortest of skirts and shewed the most decolletee of necks, and declared her mission to be that of cheering the 'dear Tommies' and giving them a good time." Philistia marries the family chauffeur who happened to be the Honourable Richard Penfold-Dering. "The Ungrown."Dps" is a well-written and agreeable novel of its kind.