A middle-aged woman on a visit to a friend meets again the man who loved her in youth.
Nothing is known of Julia Day except that she wrote two novels, of which this was the first. Its unusual lack of conflict is oddly refreshing, its characters—and the society they collectively evoke— vivid and lifelike.
“One of the most cheerful books that we ever read, . . . full of cordiality and comfort and delicate little markings of character.” Athenaeum, November 29, 1851
“As well-knit and compact a story in a small compass as we ever remember to have seen. This tale is a perfect gem in its way, the materials and the workmanship, to employ the chapmen's phrase, being worthy of each other. The events are so perfectly natural, the characters are drawn with such truth and vivacity, and the whole is set before us with such beautiful, unlaboured grace of style, that we are rapidly, but insensibly, carried from the first page to the last, with a feeling at the end, we must acknowledge, of disappointment that we have not more. . . . Though the space be small in which they have to display themselves,” the characters “are painted with a minuteness and finish worthy of a literary velvet Brueghel.” Bentley’s Miscellany, 1852
“A pleasant book, well written, and full of wholesome morality.” American Whig Review, September, 1852
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