The reader with an active imagination will get the most pleasure out of this comedy of mysteries. Above everything, he should not take it seriously; even the author does not seem to do that. It is an impossible story of two sisters who are to be married off by a rich but eccentric maiden aunt. She relegates the younger, Hezekiah, to the background until Cecilia is settled, and being superstitious about the number seven evolves a cheme which is the motif of the story. There is a laughable lover-trust, the pursuit of a smoke-ghost by the chimney doctor, and, incidentally, a pretty little love story, but it is elusive, like the whole plot.
