The Finishing Touch

<p>The tweedy Miss Hetty Braid worships the lovely but selfish Miss Antonia Mount, her co-proprietor at the most exclusive finishing school on the French Riviera. The girls they teach are quite remarkable, though hardly in the sense of academic distinction. But trouble looms when Antonia announces that ''Royalty is coming.'' The great day arrives, and though at first things go tolerably well, disaster springs from good intentions.<br><br>This Faber Finds edition includes a 1987 introduction by Brigid Brophy and a new preface by Sir Peter Stothard.<br><br>''A wicked little entertainment... plaubly not meant for the moralists or naive.'' <i>Evening Standard</i><br><br>''An outrageously indelicate joke made in beautifully mannered prose.'' <i>Daily Herald</i><br><br>''Waspish and witty.'' <i>TLS</i></p>