How They Loved Him

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. In the quiet convent of Saint Barbara at Ansprach, Fenella Barrington seems at first a creature of grace and tenderness, pausing to save a fallen fledgling and moving through the sisters' disciplined world with childlike devotion. Yet beneath that serenity lies a deeper loneliness: the nuns sense that she is friendless, perhaps orphaned in all but name, and worry over the future of a girl so affectionate, trusting, and unprepared for life beyond the convent walls. Mère Josephine, the shrewd mother superior, sees what others miss. Fenella's mother, Mrs. Barrington, is a coldly self-absorbed society woman, and the girl must be sent home at once, despite her grief at leaving the only place that has truly loved her. Back in England, Fenella's innocence collides with a household ruled by secrecy, vanity, and fear. Her delight in reunion, her naïve talk of marriage and death, and her desire to comfort her mother only expose her vulnerability. When a harmless visit from Mr. Henry Wilson sparks Mrs. Barrington's fury, and a letter from Lady Wilson threatens her social plans, Fenella is treated as an embarrassment to be removed. The novel's emotional core is the tragedy of a loving girl left at the mercy of selfish duty and social ambition.