When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

After the sudden death of James Fields in 1881 Jewett and Annie Fields lived together for the rest of Jewett's life in what was then termed a "Boston marriage. Her father was a doctor and Jewett often accompanied him on his rounds becoming acquainted with the sights and sounds of her native land and its people. She supplemented her education through an extensive family library.

Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3 1849 – June 24 1909) was an American novelist and short story writer best known for her local color works set along or near the southern seacoast of Maine.