20–4464
Lady Trent had been married at a very early age and, widowed before twenty, had left her infant daughter to the care of her elder sister, who had brought the girl up in seclusion from the world. Olave is sixteen when the story opens. A distinguished novelist meets the girl in the woods, and charmed with her youth and innocence, persuades her into a series of clandestine meetings. He finally tells her that he is engaged to another woman, and later it comes to light that this woman is Olave’s mother. The engagement is at once broken and Lady Trent tries to win her daughter’s confidence and love. But the mischief is already done and the girl continues to meet Quinn. A runaway marriage is planned, but is abandoned when Quinn’s long neglected Catholic principles reassert themselves. Olave also accepts Catholicism, toward which she has had strong leanings, feeling that under its influence she would have been saved from the course of deception she has followed.
Ath p304 S 3 ’20 390w
“Guy Quinn not only fails to live for us, but is quite devoid of any heroic qualities. As to his charm, which subjugated in turn the widow Felicity Trent and her young daughter Olave, that has to be taken altogether on trust.”
− + The Times [London] Lit Sup p532 Ag 19 ’20 600w
CLARKE, ISABEL CONSTANCE.[[2]] Ursula Finch. *$2.25 (2c) Benziger
The story of two sisters, one a spoiled beauty and one a drudge, The scene is Cornwall but later when Ursula, the drudge, seems likely to interfere with her sister’s matrimonial schemes, she is packed off to Rome as a nursery governess. Here she comes under the influence of Catholicism and joins the church. The lover who had been the cause of her exile follows her and as he also has leanings toward the Catholic faith the story ends happily.
“Miss Clarke has again produced a book which is both interesting and entertaining; yet appreciation is mingled with constant regret over the vehemence of her characterizations.”