By Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
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This book is a little different from most of the others from this
author. The cast of the story are just a shade older than we are used
to in Vaizey books, and there is no one who is afflicted with a
disabling disease, such as the author herself suffered from. I suppose
you could describe the setting as the upper-class Mayfair set.
The scene opens in the house of a tidy old spinster, living in a tidy
little seaside town, in a row of large houses of similar people, sharing
private access to a well-kept garden. A rather stable existence.
There is also a nice young American girl, over in England as part of her
education, no doubt. Her father has become very rich in America, but he
is the brother of the tidy old spinster, on whom, and to whose dismay,
he has imposed Cornelia's visit. Cornelia is simply not used to the
standards of English behaviour, for instance chaperones, and not gadding
about with young men. Cornelia has quite enough pocket-money to do as
she pleases. But her aunt is proved right in the end, for among all
these nice well-brought-up people there is a baddy, which is revealed
only towards the end. NH
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