OPEN HOUSE

Short shorts, episodes, sketches -- these have an intelligence and humanity which lightens and warms their subjects. From an involuntary collecting of Southern relatives to an English flower show and an embittered woman gardener, on to the liberation of a suppressed little girl, to a series of incidents in the lives of a Mr. and Mrs. Gregg of New Jersey, to happenings in Massachusetts --neighbors, real estate, tenants, visitors, etc. -- here are human relations in entertainingly pleasant terms, narrated with sympathy rather than scorn, humor rather than satire. From the New Yorker and Woman -- a welcome collection.