The Siege of the Seven Suitors

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.