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A GOOD MAN'S LOVE--E. M. Delafield --Harper.

If you are an old Delafield-sipper you will know that Authoress Delafield's books (The Way Things Are, The Diary of a Provincial Lady, House Party), like so many informally-handed cups of tea, have a lighthearted, everyday, almost always amusing flavor. But this time the leaves are not quite fresh, the brew is a little bitter. Usually she manages to be not too true to life to be funny. But unless you can laugh at locksmiths you will find nothing in A Good Man's Love to hold your sides over.

Villain of the piece is that somewhat shopworn old devil, the Victorian Age. Monica, only daughter of anxious parents whose every nerve was strained to do the socially right thing, was in a ticklish position from the very start. By her mother, her friends, her teachers it was dinned into her marrow that the one aim in life of every nice girl was to have & hold a Husband. Potential husbands were scarce, aware of their own value, easily frightened, had to be lured with a mingled sway of coyness and charm. Had Monica only minced down the narrow, correct way she had been taught, the prize might have been hers. But alas for corsets, in her very first season she blacklisted herself by letting an ineligible bachelor kiss her in a conservatory till all hours. Tongues wagged her market-value down & down. The bloom off, nobody came near but drones. Monica peered, preened and pined to no avail. Her father disappointedly died, her old-maid friends grew more virginal every year, her mother kept a stiff lip stiffer. Things looked pretty dismal for Monica when the biggest drone of all finally settled on her. And the dreadful point of the story is that by that time Monica was really glad to have him.

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