Friendship and Folly

Maria Louise Pool (August 20, 1841 - May 18, 1898) was an American writer. She was born in Rockland, Massachusetts to Elias Pool and Lydia Lane. She attended the public school of the town (then East Abington), and later taught school for two years. She moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1870, where she first wrote for a Philadelphia paper and afterward for the New York Evening Post and the New York Tribune. Later she resided in Wrentham, Massachusetts. It was not until 1887 that she became widely known through her A Vacation in a Buggy. Her work was reviewed extensively, as by the New York Times, but has lapsed into obscurity. She was an influence upon the young Canadian-American writer Mary MacLane, who became friends with Pool's "literary companion" (and, it is now believed, lover) Caroline M. Branson. Branson and MacLane lived together from 1902 to 1908 in the house Branson and Pool had lived in. (wikipedia.org) The Title's CONTENTS A Slight Accident "I Want to Ask You a Question" "I Really Ought to Have Been an Actress" Being a Chaperon The Evening Before "A Blessed Chance" On Board the Scythia "Cold Porridge Hot Again" The Passenger List A Knock-down Blow "Don't Be Cruel to Me" An Involuntary Bath A Bull Terrier "Too Much for Any Woman to Forgive" Tête-à-Tête "Are you Going to Marry Lord Maxwell?" Leander as a means "I Shall Come Back"