Much Ado About Peter

The reader that would have the delightful experience of falling- in love with the Carters' serving-maid must read 'Much Ado About Peter' by Jean Webster. And, incidentally, she who would rather not fall in love with the Carters' groom had better avoid this collection of short stories about Annie O'Reilly and Peter Malone. These ten tales of life from the viewpoint of those below stairs all have the same hero and heroine, and the fact that the conclusion brings them to the usual fate of lovers gives the book the semblance of a novel. Besides Annie and Peter, the gardener Vittorio, late of the Bersaglieri Corps, who fought Menelek in Abyssinia, makes a palpable showing in a bid for the reader's sympathy. How the meek Italian gave Peter and the coachman a lesson in target shooting makes a story which will give the ordinary person a choky feeling in the region of his sentiment. There is much crisp dialogue, and a good deal of sunshiny humor throughout, and if some of the escapades related seem a little less than realistic, the wholesome preachments to which they act as vehicles are none the less pertinent and enjoyable.