THE NEW MOON WITH THE OLD

While this is unlikely to rival the enchantment of I Capture a Castle, it is once again the sort of unbelievable romance that makes the heart young again....Jane Minton, spinster, finds herself caught up in the lives of the Carrington family when she accepts the post of secretary-housekeeper down in Surrey and thinks she has fallen on pleasant ways in a delightful household. And then disaster strikes- and Jane cannot extricate herself. She becomes something of a d ex machina, for no one of the young people has been trained to cope with the unexpected, with sudden poverty, with the need to become practical realists. Oddly enough 14-year-old Merry is the first to seize the chance to put her acting talent to good use; she runs away from the threat of a change of schools and tumbles into events that move too fast for even her histrionics...Then Drew seeks out a way to see the inside working of the Edwardian period protracted- and he too is trapped by people and events.... Clare, vague, immature, least able to meet necessity, has the strangest adventure of all -- a childhood dream comes true in most unorthodox fashion...And finally Richard, appalled by the practical solution Jane offers him, finds that he too needs to run away to a job, leaving a note behind to explain that things at home had proved too much for him.... The reader is carried forward, beguiled, half-persuaded, but never convinced, when the story ends on a hopeful note as the errant father briefly returns -- to find only Jane remaining. Fun to read.