Holmes, Mary Jane: Ethelyn's Mistake. V1. 2 July 2010
 

Mary Jane Hawes was born in Brookfield, Massachusetts in 1825. At age 13 she taught in a school. She married Daniel Holmes and they settled in Versailles, Kentucky. In 1854 she wrote her first novel, Tempest and Sunshine. The theme for most of her novels was domestic life. She died in 1907, at the age of 82, in Brockport, New York.

Excerpt
There was a sweet odor of clover blossoms in the early morning air, and the dew stood in great drops upon the summer flowers, and dropped from the foliage of the elm trees which skirted the village common. There was a cloud of mist upon the meadows, and the windings of the river could be distinctly traced by the white fog which curled above it. But the fog and the mists were rolling away as the warm June sun came over the eastern hills, and here and there signs of life were visible in the little New England town of Chicopee, where our story opens.