Backwash

EXPIATION --Elizabeth--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

Of all the wives of all the brothers Bott, Ernest's Milly was the only soft, plump, docile one. The other brothers pondered their wives' angles and acerbities, secretly envied Ernest. When he died leaving his fortune to the "Home for Fallen Women" and adding a codicil, "My wife will know why," the Bott brothers were incredulous, their wives smugly pleased.

Poor docile Milly was distraught. Ten years before she had started sinning, but for nine of the ten she had been so accustomed to her comfortable afternoon-a-week with Arthur that she had left off thinking it sin. Moreover Arthur, that elderly refreshment, was the reason she was able to be so good a wife to Ernest. Ernest had benefited by "the backwash," as it were, of her happiness with Arthur.

But now that her sin found her out--or rather, Ernest had found her out--Milly resolved upon expiation. The united Botts offered her the opportunity. Determined that Titford township should not interpret Ernest's bequest as a Bott scandal, the family council decided that each in turn should harbor and make much of Milly. Before Milly had nearly gone this painful round, her sin was thoroughly expiated.

The unwelcome guest, elaborately welcomed, is fair meat for "Elizabeth's" delicate irony. Gay and delightful in manner, there is no gaiety in Expiation--all marriage is discontent, all marriage disagreeable. And according to old Mrs. Bott, the negative moral is that troubles, being the stuff that dreams are made on, will pass.