THE GRAND SOPHY

Another of the author's amusing fripperies, this is concerned with Sophy, whose continental upbringing under a father whose diplomatic career gave her more licence than any other English miss and whose peculiar talents are put to a wide use when she visits her aunt, Lady Osheraley. For Charles is running the household with far too strict a hand, and is engaged to far too straight laced Miss Wraxton; his sister is in love with an impossible poet and cool to the man of her family's choice; Hubert is entangled with moneylenders; and Sophy with unswerving determination -- decides to put everything right. This entails her driving Charles' cherished horses, buying her own stables, giving an enormous ball, putting a moneylender in his place, and stage-managing the break-up of Charles' engagement, the proper course of his sister's and a successfully caught husband for herself. Amidst the fustian of the period Sophia's naturalness contrasts with the simpers and high flights, and the puckers and sad tangles are routed in a lighthearted manner. Effervescent.