She was a laughing, prancing vixen of ten with a mop of red curls, this Rose Hawthorne when the family returned from their years in Europe, and the world was her enchanted playground. Rome had been fun because there were the many fiestas and the great splashing fountains to amuse one; and Concord, when finally she came home to it was a delight. Ned Emerson let her ride his pony; Bronson Alcott permitted her to trail about after him while he constructed what he chose to call "arbors" on the hill behind the Wayside; at Walden Pond there were games of "scaring" the great Thoreau. Hers was a wonderful childhood.

Tragedy came with the death of her adored father, Nathaniel Hawthorne; then more years in Europe; romance; marriage and disillusionment, and the final awakening to the vocation which crowned her life and made her one of the most beloved and revered women of her era.

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop's tenderness and skilled care for the destitute sufferers of malignant disease in a day when hospitals had little interest in them is an inspiring and poignant commentary on the true grandeur of simple kindness as a primary factor in all human relations.

From the dust jacket