procrastinator and obstructionist in the matter of publication, had her reasons.) From minutely assembled external evidence as well as careful interpretation of poems and letters, Mrs. Patterson reconstructs the following emotional history. During late adolescence Emily was passionately attached to Sue Gilbert, afterward her sister-in-law, a girl who had similarly attracted Kate Scott during their boarding school days. But Sue herself was cold in both relationships, and left Emily wholly unaware of the true nature of her emotion. A decade later, Kate Scott Anthon appeared, the widow of a loved first husband who had died after only two years of married life. Kate was beautiful, socially and emotionally mature, hungry for love, and much taken with Emily at sight. The two women’s association was not protracted, probably amounting in all to less than two months; however, it was highly concentrated during Kate’s semi-annual visits over a period of two years to Sue Gilbert Dickinson who lived next door to Emily. The contact begun in March 1859 flowered then and during August of that year into an intense mutual absorption. Emily even showed Kate the poetry of which her own family still knew nothing. This flowering included some demonstrativeness, apparently Emily’s first congenial experience of caresses, and therefore an electrifying revelation. In March 1860, during Kate’s third visit to Sue, Emily’s sister Lavinia was absent from home, and the two young women spent a night together. This experience enlightened Emily as to at least the nature of passion (a lesson of which many Victorian spinsters died ignorant), but to Kate’s desire for complete intimacy, Emily reacted with shock and withdrawal. Kate knew herself well enough to be aware that she could not continue a close association on Emily’s puritanic terms, and she avoided visiting Sue again for more than a year, though for a time she continued to correspond with Emily. The latter was too inexperienced to understand quite what had happened, and for six months she continued to be—as she had been since first meeting Kate—happier and more out-going in her personal relationships and correspondence than ever before or after.