I loved this book as a teen. I think the reason is that it begins with an adult returning to purchase a home remembered from her past. It continues to reminisce about the summer she spent there as a child. In my youth I fantasized about how things would be when I grew up. It often looked like this woman's life with a cozy cottage in the country. It is a good story with a gentle ghost and a wonderful cozy atmosphere. ( )

The first of Ruth M. Arthur's books to be published in the United States, this short novel follows the story of Kate, moving backward and forward through time. It opens in the (then) present, as Kate, now an older woman, prepares to purchase Stone House, the small cottage where she spent the best summer of her life. The narrative then reverts to the past of her youth, to the incredible summer she spent in Cumberland as a young girl, a summer that affected the entire course of her life...

This gentle story is notable in that the heroine does not end up with the young man she loves, but still manages to live a happy life. The author's central theme - of the connections between the present and the past - does figure in this novel, although it is less developed than in her later books. Although I am a great fan of Ruth M. Arthur, and did enjoy this book, I gave it four stars because I felt that it lacked some of the narrative smoothness and emotional power of her later works. ( )

A sweet little story about a girl and the summer that shaped her life. There's a gentle ghost, and a gentle love affair, and a gentle aunt. Well, you get the picture. A lot of the plots (and even the names) that Arthur would revisit more successfully in later works are in evidence here. If this had been the only book Arthur ever wrote, I would have loved it fiercely. As it is, it's more of a curiosity, something to read if you're a Ruth M. Arthur completist, but certainly not her best. ( )