Mr. Howells dips into psychological twilight in this volume of short stories. They are queer and creepy without being exactly supernatural. In «Editha» there is a war story of a new kind, although its heroine is the same old, inconsequent and exasperating girl that Mr. Howells has drawn for so many years, he could probably do it with his eyes shut by this time. «It all interested her intensely; she was undergoing a tremendous experience and she was being equal to it!» And so with the egotistic cruelty of youth she sends her lover to his death and has to face his mother afterward. The other tales are less tragic, and told as Mr. Howells alone can tell such small comedies, by means of conversations among intimate friends, with the graceful give and take of actual dialog, as the group discuss the affairs of their friends with after-dinner philosophic interest.
