A schoolmaster passes his vacation with an ailing student at a seaside resort and there meets an attractive pair of sisters.
Moira O’Neill was the pen-name of Agnes Nesta Shakespeare Skrine, nee Higginson (1864-1955), an Irish poet who wrote just a few works of fiction, including this unassuming novella.
“Slight as is the story, at least it is a page out of real life, cleverly reflecting the conventions and tone of a highly respectable ‘set.’ . . . What is sufficiently evident here is her power of watching and marking the finer play of certain minds with whom presumably she is in sympathy.” Bookman, April 1893
It is “a story about nothing in particular, and it amuses and pleases for no definite reason either. . . . Man, from woman’s point of view, is treated with quiet sagacity and humour.” Athenaeum, April 8, 1893
“It is a novel with an attractive cultivated air, written in admirable English by a writer with a good knowledge of society, and with a keen eye for character”; there is no “aggressive display of cleverness, . . . it pleases in a quiet way by being always simply right.” Academy, April 15, 1893
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