Cathedral Courtship, and Other Stories

Three American women take rooms in London — Penelope the artist, Salemina the Boston philanthropist, and Francesca, not yet twenty and in love — and set down the weekly bill, the powdered footman, a ducal tea-party and a ball watched from across the street. With them come A Cathedral Courtship, in which Kitty Schuyler and Jack Copley conduct a romance through the English cathedral towns in alternating diaries, and The Birds'' Christmas Carol, the story of a sick child born on Christmas Day that first made Wiggin''s name. Light, quick, and less innocent about the English than it looks. Forty-five plates, from Millais to Turner, follow the travellers through market scenes, rivers and lakeside light that mirror the cathedral towns and quiet English landscapes of the stories.