How could I resist a title like that, and the setting, a quaint college town? The novel turns out, however, to be the story of a disagreeable young woman, Flora Dempsey “an only child who never liked to share.” Her father, a former president of the college, loved and respected by the community has died, naming Flora in his will as his literary executor. He has also left her his house and a considerable amount of money.
The novel takes us through fall, winter, and spring as Flora battles against the kindness and sympathy expressed by both town and gown. She is overwhelmed by Cynthia, a woman who claims to have been the inspiration for a collection of love poems, the manuscript her father has left her. She cannot bring herself to have them published. What Flora will do with her inheritance is the question the book tries to answer.
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