Miss Fleming at her appealing, cheerfully satanic best in this 19th century London tale of a maiden fair to see and horrid to know. She for whom it is alas too late, is the dreadful Nokomis, daughter of a wayward American and ""Red Indian""--Nokomis, who for all sorts of serpentine reasons (the lawyer-team briefings are gems of dramatic recitative) arrives at the happy home of nice Major Thomas Nately (ne Dyce), his adoring wife Emma, and their Amelia, wise beyond her eleven years. With the advent of Nokomis--unnaturally beautiful, with a voice like a crosscut saw and ""the nearest approach to a snake that a human being can get""--arise a variety of misfortunes: the resurrection of old rumors about one Major Dyce pushing his first wife overboard; poison-pen letters; a possible curse on a moonstone trembante, finally lifted from Thomas by Nokomis; and a swarm of poltergeists every time Nokomis appears. But at the last, Thomas' reputation is restored and the grim finale echoes sentimental Victorian parlor songs, rendered here with a barely perceptible wink.