This dry comedy of manners, set in a parochial England that was rapidly disappearing under the threat of Nazi Germany, was the first of Thirkell's increasingly dark novels written during World War II. But the placid surface of middle-class life in towns such as Marling Melicent--where a bohemian, faintly disreputable brother and sister suddenly appear and rent an Edwardian manor--remains mostly undisturbed. Thirkell, who portrayed a vanishing England, is enjoying something of a revival with many of her 40-odd novels being reprinted in the United States.