Farce Manque

THE JASMINE FARM -- Elizabeth-- Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

Few writers of any sex or nationality can be more charmingly amusing than "Elizabeth" (Elizabeth Mary, Countess Russell), when she sets her mind to it. The Jasmine Farm shows her at her mindful best. Written with a wit so inoffensive that it is hardly perceptible, this novel will keep many a plain reader from more mischievous pursuits for a pleasant, if softening, hour or two.

It all started with a most correct, not to say super-aristocratic, country week-end at which there was an unaccountable surfeit of gooseberry desserts and one unaccountably incorrect guest. Poor dear old-fashioned Daisy suspected her daughter Terry of an ineffable sin with one of her oldest friends, and she went about allaying her frightful suspicions in the only way she knew. In spite of the gooseberries everything seemed to be coming out all right when Terry's tongue slipped. That set gossip wagging. Daisy might have shut her ears to the gossip but when she was assailed by a friendly but blackmailing social-climber, she knew the fat was in the fire. She collapsed, fled to her inaccessible cottage in France to hide her shame. Who pursued her there and what happened to make everything come out as well as could be expected is a denouement that "Elizabeth's" kindly wit just rescues from farce.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.