THE DRESDEN FINCH

Although this is still a ""limonade gazeuse,"" Jessica Stirling (Strathmore) uses new period speech ways and tells a different story, turning everything upside down with an evil governess as villainess. The real one's Sophy Richmond, twenty when she goes to Europe to find a well-heeled husband and is ""left in motherhood"" instead by a Hussar. Thus her cicerone, Miss Frampton, arranges her marriage to older Leon de Nerval, appropriates her baby before the loveless wedding takes place, and is found doing all sorts of ugly things with her burly butler lover. May virtue--Miss Stirling's--be rewarded for skirting the hackneyed obvious; she has enough tone to convert it into a pleasant soiree.