A beguiling sort of story this, as the mysterious little old waif, calling self Tobias Brandywine, becomes the good angel of the Windrow household, changing of their lives. There's humor and charm here, and a wholly fresh vein for a fey quality that is now to the author of The Wayfarers. The Windrove family, ruled by an old man's past, until Tobias gives them life of their drama in the unfolding of characters, characters that seemed caught in immobilized, until Tobias found the key that unlocked them. Incide to the shifts in interrelations of personalities -- and Tobias' own ideas at the end, when his function as deus ex machina is no longer needed.