This beloved short story – a classic coming-of-age tale by the author of The Country of the Pointed Firs – is gloriously illustrated with pencil drawings by Maine artist Douglas Alvord. Sylvia, a city girl more at home with animals than with people, has come to the Maine Woods to live with her grandmother. One summer afternoon in the late 1800s, her life is changed forever when she meets an attractive young ornithologist searching for birds to snare, stuff, preserve, and display.

With consummate literary skill, Jewett dramatizes the storm of emotions Sylvia feels both for this young man and for the natural world, and especially for the rare white heron the ornithologist is so eager to possess. Mr. Alvord's pictures are as delicate as Sylvia's emotions and as precise as Jewett's descriptions of Sylvia's inner struggle.