Who Was She?

On his birthday, an embarrassed man tells a friend about a summer encounter that unsettled his confidence in his own judgment. Three years earlier, at Wampsocket Springs, he had enjoyed the company at a fashionable hotel while keeping a secluded pool in the hills as his private retreat. A woman's footprints and an unsigned sketchbook change his sense of solitude. He reads its notes about independence, social expectations and the difficulty of finding an equal companion, then leaves a pencilled reply.

Bayard Taylor's short story follows the gap between the narrator's imagined acquaintance and the people he meets in society. Written messages give him reasons to hope, but his attempt to identify their author leads to an awkward misunderstanding. The conversational telling combines detailed summer scenery with an amused examination of vanity and trust. Readers interested in courtship through letters can watch each new clue test the narrator's certainty.