A Wife and Child.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 494, 1 July 1932, Page 6

A Wife and Child.

By

Eleanor Reid.

r jPHIS NOVEL is extremely readable and I can strongly recommend it to all readers who happen to be fond of an unusual story and one that is well constructed. I't is the story of Winnie Furland, wife of Cosmo Furland, son of folks who moved in the society of a small village in Surrey. When the story opens, the members of Cosmo's family have just learned of his death, that he had married a girl who is his social inferior, and that his wife and child will arrive almost immediately. Naturally, Winnie’s descent upon the Kurland’s, with their aloofness, their family tradition, and their snobbishness, brought dismay to their midst. Perhaps we can picture the scene: The three ladies sitting: in front of her like a funeral committee, were all extremely civilised. . . . Lydia, worldly and snobbish-; Sybil, cultured and sentimental; May, impetuous and hot tempered. Winnie, who is really a charming young woman, visits May, the wife of Major Aveston, but is made to feel terribly unhappy and is plainly treated as a social inferior. Her day with the old people was much more pleasant, but her stay with Sybil yielded no companionship, no love; there was something unreal about it all, she had only her child and he was very dear to her heart. In the end something quite unexpected happens and Cosmo’s wife and child pass out of the Furland family. This is a very human story, it is a satire upon snobbery, it is a study of horridness, it is witty, and is intensely interesting from beginning to end. ERNEST J. BELL.