Excerpt: 'When you learn that this story begins with the heroine setting off through the woods to visit her grandmother, who was ill, you may guess that it is the familiar tale of Little Red Riding Hood. I must admit that that is what it is, and I warn you that you may count upon a very artless little heroine and a wolf of insinuating manners and glib tongue; but this grandmother will not be eaten up. Nor did Ethel carry a basket containing a little pat of butter and a cake. She had, instead, a large and luxurious box of candied fruit under her arm; and instead of singing through the woods, she wore a sulky and miserable expression. Unfortunately red hoods are not in vogue, for such a thing would have been notably becoming to her little gypsy face. However, she was young enough and lovely enough to look well in anything, even a sulky expression. She was not without some excuse for her discontented air. Ethel was one of those unfortunate little bones of contention so often to be found in divided families, and she had been so much disputed over and argued about, and so rarely consulted or even questioned, that she had grown to think of herself as a helpless pawn in an incomprehensible game, where she could never win anything.'
