Mrs. Farrell by William Dean Howells

This story of my father’s was first printed under the title of Private Theatricals in the Atlantic Monthly of 1875, while he was still editor of the magazine. It appeared a few years after Henry James’s Gabrielle de Bergerac, and neither of the two short novels was ever republished by their authors. My father’s must have been written in the Concord Avenue house in Cambridge which he and my mother had just built and moved into. They were very proud of the new house, even of its mansard roof such as every house of the period was obliged to have, and which is reflected in the newly added French roofs of some of the houses near the church in West Pekin; but their greatest pride was in the library. My impressions of the house are those of rather extreme youth, but I can remember that it was lined with bookshelves bordered by bands of red, scalloped leather that were meant, as I now suppose, to keep the dust from the book tops but which were then pleasantly mysterious to the infant mind. There were very satisfactory tiles of Eastlake tendencies over the fireplace, picturing the seasons in yellow and brown, and a vast flat-topped desk in the middle of the room with rows of drawers on either side that went down to the floor, leaving a dark hole between them, which was useful as a doll’s house when not occupied by my father’s feet. The room was at the back of the house, for greater quiet, and looked out into a deep, grassy yard divided down the center by a hedge of lilacs, and only invaded by birds and children.