Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930) was a prominent 19th century American author. Until recently, she was known primarily as a "feminist" writer, for her classic stories like "A New England Nun" and "The Revolt of Mother". However, she also wrote many well-crafted supernatural stories that have only recently begun to attract appreciative critical attention. These stories combine pragmatism and supernaturalism and are very much in the tradition of an "Americanized" Gothic. Freeman also used the ghost story as a means of examining, indirectly, the pressures that often silenced or devalued women and their concerns.

This spooky tale is from her most famous collection of supernatural tales, The Wind in the Rose Bush and Other Stories.