Cakewalk

Brown's most beloved characters, the irrepressible Hunsenmeir sisters Louise (Wheezie) and Julia (Juts), are back, this time as teenagers. In the fictitious town of Runnymede, on the Maryland-Pennsylvania (and Mason-Dixon) line, it's early 1920, Prohibition is sensibly ignored, and women's suffrage is considered unlikely to be ratified. Despite their sisterly squabbling, Wheezie and Juts are joined in animosity against the Rhodes girls, Lottie and Delilah Jr. (who rouges her nipples!). Much of this leisurely story concerns the older women who shape the sisters, especially their mother, Cora, and her employer and friend, the elegant and wealthy Celeste Chalfont. The Chalfont household is preparing for the wedding of Celeste's brother Curtis, who has impregnated Celeste's longtime lover, Ramelle, and Celeste is devising a plan to include the mistress of her other brother, Stirling, whose wife will not be attending the ceremony. (Such extramarital activity appears well tolerated when conducted discreetly by a certain class.)