Within the first quarter of _The Farringdons_ Mrs. Fowler includes a series of three passionate attachments experienced by the motherless heroine. These occur before Elisabeth is twenty, but they are noteworthy because of the author’s peculiar stress upon them. There are two things which are absolutely necessary to the well-being of the normal feminine mind—namely, one romantic attachment and one comfortable friendship. Elisabeth was perfectly normal and extremely feminine, and consequently she provided herself early with these two aids to happiness.[3] Despite this insistence on normal femininity, the object of the girl’s comfortable friendship is a boy neighbor; that of her passionate attachment a tall, handsome and witty Cousin Anne, a decade older than she is. All the romance of Elisabeth’s nature—and there was a great deal of it—was lavished upon Anne Farringdon.... The mere sound of Anne’s voice vibrated through the child’s whole being, and every little trifle connected with her cousin became a sacred relic.[4] Deep in the reading of mythology, Elisabeth sees her cousin as Diana, builds a shrine to her in the garden, and practices a ritual of burnt offerings before it. She also takes great interest in the Book of Ruth, sensing “a parallelism to herself and Cousin Anne (in feeling at least).” People sometimes smile at the adoration of a young girl for a woman, and there is no doubt but that the feeling savours slightly of school days and bread and butter. But there is also no doubt that a girl who has once felt it has learned what real love is, and that is no small lesson in the book of life.[5] This devotion occupies Elisabeth from twelve to sixteen, when the cousin’s death plunges her into melancholy which threatens her health. She is accordingly hurried off to boarding school, where during the next four years she experiences a case of passionate hero-worship for the headmistress, and a “devoted friendship” with a schoolmate who became for a time “the very mainspring of Elisabeth’s life. She was a beautiful girl ... and Elisabeth adored her with the adoration ... freely given to the girl who has beauty by the girl who has not.” Upon this girl Elisabeth lavishes that passionate and thrilling friendship ... so satisfying to the immature female soul, but which is never again experienced by the woman who has once been taught by a man the nature of real love.[6] The latter experience she meets at twenty. All these careful statements indicate the author’s full awareness of the nature of variance and her taking a deliberate stand with regard to it. Equally definite is the implication that none of these early adorations involved physical intimacy.