But I don't want a china doll, Mother. Nellie is china.' Darkness overwhelmed her. All the shining bliss was blotted out as suddenly as it had flashed into light. Her heart sank down, far, far down into emptiness, and instead of the happy sighing of the leaves she heard only a mournful whisper from the flames that crawled over the lightwood knots on their way into smoke. Never, never as long as she lived would she have a doll with real hair that she could comb and brush. Something would always stand in the

Nothing, except the weather report or a general maxim of conduct, is so unsafe to rely upon as a theory of fiction. Every great novel has broken many conventions. The greatest of all novels defies every formula; and only Mr. Percy Lubbock believes that War and Peace would be greater if it were another and an entirely different book. By this I do not mean to question Mr. Lubbock's critical insight. The Craft of Fiction is the best work in its limited field, and it may be studied to advantage by any novelist.

Something within herself, over which she had no control, was thinking aloud. And as if her imagination had escaped from darkness into light, a crowd of impressions revolved in her mind like the swiftly changing colours of a kaleidoscope. His eyes, black at a distance, brown when you looked into them. The healthy reddish tan of his skin. The white streak on his neck under his collar. The way his hair grew in short close waves like a cap. His straight red lips, with their look of vital and urgent youth. The f