Observe that I was careful to say the
"accidental" turning, though I can picture a type of reader who might soon
be fluttering the pages of _Shuttered Doors_ in impatient handfuls. The
fact is that Mrs. WILLIAM HICKS BEACH has here written what is less a novel
than a treatise, tasteful, informed and sympathetic, on county life and
manners and houses. The last of these themes especially has an undisguised
fascination for her. When _Aletta_, the chief heroine, was left pots of
money by a Dutch uncle (who was so far from filling his proverbial _role_
that he hardly talked at all) she spent it and her enthusiasm, indeed her
existence, in restoring two variously dilapidated mansions--Graythorpes,
her husband's home, and Doller Place, left her by an appreciative aunt.
When not thus employed she would be reading a paper on Homes (given here
_in extenso_), or comparing those of other persons with her own. I don't
want you to get the impression that _Shuttered Doors_ is precisely arid; it
is too full of ideas and vitalities for that; but it does undoubtedly
demand a special kind of reader.
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