William Dean Howells — editor of The Atlantic and the most powerful literary broker in America — turns his realist's eye on the delicate cruelties of patronage. A Vermont girl of no family is taken up by a wealthy woman as a companion and carried off to Italy, where the arrangement, and everyone's precise notion of what she is owed, quietly comes apart. Her refusal to be grateful on command is the whole of the book. This edition presents the complete and unabridged novel, newly typeset and illustrated with 30 full-page color plates.