About this Book

Isabel Bolton (pen name for Mary Britton Miller) left behind a classic evocation of a childhood which, despite the early loss of both parents, the author describes as "complete and round - a perfect whole." Bolton's earliest impressions of her parents are vague - both died of cholera when she was very young - and her memories begin when the five orphaned Miller children are sent to live with their maternal grandmother. In the elegant rooms of her mansion and in the unkempt gardens surrounding the estate, Mary and her identical twin sister Grace find a sheltering refuge. The shared history of the twins is at the book's heart. "It was never I but always we." Bolton writes. But then tragedy strikes, and in this exquisite example of the art of memoir writing, Bolton lyrically recreates the emotional bond which, sixty-eight years later, remained palpably alive.