THE SMILE OF THE STRANGER

Another topnotch confection from a first-class pastry cook. Juliana Paget's father mysteriously insists that they flee 1790s Florence when a lady with a crow-like voice is seen inquiring after them. Their trip across the Channel in a balloon (to evade French revolutionaries) does father in, and Juliana is left to her crusty old estranged grandpa. (Dad had been a writer of histories, notably the life of Juliana's hero, Charles I, and old General Paget thought writing no occupation for a gentleman.) Soon Juliana is in London, where her loathsome aunt tries to marry her off to a wifebeating ancient—and she falls for one Capt. Davenport, the spitting image of Charles I, down to his out-of-fashion beard. But when Juliana elopes with the Capt., who should reappear but the crow-voiced lady of Florence: her mother, who, being short on natural feeling, has been trying to kidnap—and kill—her for years so as to get hold of an inheritance that Juliana didn't even know she had. The ensuing alarums and excursions involve not only an assortment of nobles and their mistresses, but the Prince of Wales to boot, and a good time is had by all. Except, of course, evil old Mum.