Well, I persevered through The Crowded Street, and in the end I suppose it was worthwhile. Perhaps I was in the wrong mood, or the comparison withMiss Buncle's Book was too stark, but I felt somewhat wearied by another story about a young woman whose family, situation, and disposition were all against her. Fortunately it ended well.

Then I picked up The New House, by Lettice Cooper--this novel was also published by Persephone, although the edition I read was a Virago from the library. At first it was depressingly similar to The Crowded Street, but overall I liked it much better. It was shorter, for one thing (The Crowded Street dragged on a bit too long), and followed more characters; and it covered the events of just one day, in which various members of a family deal with moving out of their house after the death of the husband and father. Some of them are glad to leave, and some are devastated, but all of them are changed for the better in the end.