Spinster

Miss BISHOP-Bess Streeter Aldrich-Appleton-Century ($2).

Ella Bishop was a charter member of Midwestern College. In those dim Victorian undergraduate days she was the most popular member of a daringly co-educational experiment. And after her four bright college years an admiring faculty invited her to join them as teacher of grammar. Ella took her job very seriously, even in off-hours. Then love came to Ella; his name was Delbert. But a kitteny young cousin snatched Delbert away by seducing him. Ella put away her wedding dress and stood by for further trouble. It came: Death took Delbert and his kittenish wife, leaving Ella with her rival's baby. She called the baby Hope, brought her up as her niece.

Meantime Midwestern was growing older and bigger; Ella, now Miss Bishop and a campus landmark, grew with it. Love came once more, in the shape of a middle-aged professor, but he had a wife. Miss Bishop's mother went crazy, rocked back & forth in her room for nine years. The professor's unwanted wife died; on his way to Miss Bishop he was killed in an accident. Miss Bishop's salary was cut; her savings went down the drain when her bank failed. But when cheering alumni gave her a testimonial dinner all Miss Bishop's unshed tears became a rosary.

Such a resume hardly does Miss Bishop justice. The late great Thomas Hardy also piled coincidences and hounded his heroines relentlessly. No Hardy, but a popular novelist with a popular novelist's faults and virtues, Authoress Aldrich writes with feminine gusto, human warmth.

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