Lydia Blood, a schoolteacher from a hill village in northern Massachusetts, sails from Boston on the merchant ship Aroostook to join her aunt in Venice, unaware that she will be the only woman on board. Among the passengers are two cultivated young Bostonians, and the long crossing becomes a delicate comedy of manners as the worldly Staniford first condescends to her and then cannot stop thinking about her.
Howells at his most charming, setting New England innocence against Boston sophistication and European society. Download the free EPUB.