OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY

A superior bit of giddiness as the authors collaborate on memories of a trip through Europe in the '20's, when they were -- though no one else recognized it -- very much women of the world. They found their helplessness in the face of the unexpected -- the boat from Canada going around, measles, bedbugs, a meeting with H. G. Wells, their mothers' insistence on awkward hiding places for their valuables, hard crosses to bear. There's a zany feel to their responses of that age, to the preoccupation with clothes and dates with ""men""; to their availing themselves of the possibilities of studying in Paris; to doing the right thing and yet avoiding being touristy. There's hilarity in their descriptions of the things they did, the way they behaved and the strange things that happened to them. Laugh provoking, with a nice feel to ""the farewell to all that"" at the end, that equals, and sometimes betters, My Sister Eileen.