The Pleasant Street Partnership

A curious little shop unsettles the habits of the Terrace, where old family names and spacious houses still carry weight. In Mary Finley Leonard's neighborhood novel, the growing city presses around this proud residential corner, and new building on Pleasant Street brings change close to home. Miss Pennington considers renting an oddly designed building intended for a drug store. Her insistence on a fireplace, and her cheerful exchange with young James Mandeville Norton, give the opening its playful tone.

The shop also raises less comfortable questions about social standing and the courtesy owed to newcomers. Miss Virginia Wilbur wonders how to acknowledge the help Miss Pennington and Miss Carpenter have given Charlotte, while Charlotte's guardian urges her toward honesty and better judgment in friendship. Domestic conversations, neighborhood opinions and a child's developing conscience make up the story's action. Readers interested in everyday social manners will find a close look at how kindness meets inherited ideas about who belongs.