ABOUT BOOK

The "waif" of Miss Broughton's story is no shivering and starving urchin of the streets, but a beautifully gowned, bewitching girl of nearly eighteen Summers -- a waif none the less, in that nothing save grudging hospitalities stand between her and homeless destitution. She has an inheritance of "drink on both sides, immorality on both sides, selfishness on both sides, extravagance and folly on both sides," as summed up by a stern benefactress. --New York Times, Review of Books, November 11, 1905