"You're willing, Patty, only because you're so good-natured and unselfish; but, really, you don't want to go one bit." "Now, Nan, I'm no poor, pale martyr, with a halo roundy-bout me noble brow. When we came down here to Spring Beach, it was understood that we were to stay here part of the summer, and then go to the mountains. And now it's the first of August and I've had my innings, so it's only fair you should have your outing." Though Patty's air was gay and careless, and Patty's tones were sincere, she was in reality making an heroic self-sacrifice, and Nan knew it. Patty loved the seashore; she had been there three months, and loved it better every day.

Author Biography

Carolyn Wells (1862 - 1942) was an American writer and poet. Carolyn Wells wrote a total of more than 170 books. During the first ten years of her career, she concentrated on poetry, humor and children's books. According to her autobiography, The Rest of My Life (1937), she heard That Affair Next Door (1897), one of Anna Katharine Green's mystery novels, being read aloud and was immediately captivated by the unraveling of the puzzle. From that point onward she devoted herself to the mystery genre. Among the most famous of her mystery novels were the Fleming Stone Detective Stories which-according to Allen J. Hubin's Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1749-2000 (2003)-number 61 titles. Wells's The Clue (1909) is on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list of essential mysteries. She was also the first to conduct a (brief, in this case) annual series devoted to the best short crime fiction of the previous year in the U.S., beginning with The Best American Mystery Stories of the Year (1931) (though others had begun a similar British series in 1929).