30 AUGUST 1957, Page 25

The Pretty Ones. By Dorothy Eden. (Mac- donald, 10s. 6d.)

Three brothers live in a quietly rotting farmhouse, to which one brings a bride, who discovers that this is a bourne whence pretty servants and governesses—and a wife?—have dis- appeared. A brace of unsentimentalised small girls are matter-of-fact about the macabre, and disquiet is delectably conveyed.