Summer visits
"Plain (she resembled her father) and aware of it, painfully shy and inclined to read poetry, [Flora] found the mistress-ship of Cotton Hall nothing but a burden; and however inadequate as a housekeeper would have been still less adequate as its hostess, but fortunately there was no entertaining to be done. Indeed it sometimes seemed as though John Henry had settled in Suffolk simply to disoblige his neighbors." Cotton Hall is half rectory, half manor, and settled into as home by cotton merchant John Henry Braithwaite. It was he who gave it the simple name, as though, while proud of his newfound affluence, he wasn't going to hide where that affluence came from. Every summer the prospering family of John Henry come as visitors to Cotton Hall, and every summer brings changes--shattered romantic dreams, daring misalliances, and unexpected heirs. Even the plain, dull spinster in the family has her secrets to hide. But more than the story of the Braithwaite family, (the chronicle spans several decades) 'Summer Visits' is about the archetypal English country home, and the changes wrought upon it through the tumultuous last century.