Magicking in Mobile and intoxicating Southern comfort spark a young lad's year of self-discovery. Our hero spends a shining web of days at Miss Fiffield's house and her rather unique perspective is part and parcel of the antics that bubble through the household and in which he is sometimes openly, sometimes slyly a participator. Miss Fiffy's niece, Philine, is his first love and he pursues her when she runs off to New York with his hated, too beautiful cousin, Perrin. He spars with the painter, Kosta, an eccentric Pan who paints his dead poodle into his landscapes. Safely returned home, he has his vengeance on Perrin and solace in marriage to his beloved uncle's young widow. There's a friendliness in all the characters; the dialogue effervesces with spirit and imagery; there are daffy surprises as episode follows episode but this world of whims is elementally true. A winner in the Lippincott Fiction Prize Contest Young Novelists, this has a vernal, rollicking charm that will seduce even the moral-minded.