The irresistible Brandons, their friends, and their servants are full of youthful nonsense and middle-aged folly. People will fall in love with the wrong person, and all are determined to misunderstand each other.
Like Barbara Pym, E. F. Benson, and Jane Austen herself, Angela Thirkell has created a small world of her own in the English countryside. Calf love, village affairs, and literary effort are her nominal subjects; but her real interest is people, at their imperfect best.
