A collection of long short stories, stories of mood and personalities -- rather than of incident -- by the author of The Dwelling Place (1943). There is none of the spiritual quality that made The Dwelling Place appeal to many readers. But there is the same deftness and simplicity. The backgrounds shift from Switzerland and the Italian Lakes to the Hawaiian islands -- to New England -- to the South. Exotic flavor to many, as' she writes of the influence of one personality on the life of another -- of nostalgic return and failure to recapture a lost mood --of the past. Period is contemporary though not war. There's an occasional hint of autobiography -- of emotions savored and ascribed to others -- the personalities of the women blur into a more or less central figure.