Elinor Wyllys; or, The Young Folk of Longbridge, narrates six years in the life of the eponymous Elinor Wyllys, from her seventeenth birthday party until her marriage. Elinor is an orphan brought up quietly by her grandfather, a country gentleman of intellectual tastes, and by a devoted maiden aunt who runs the Wyllys household. Elinor has spent her childhood with two close friends: her beautiful cousin Jane Graham, and the handsome Harry Hazlehurst, a budding lawyer and heir to a rich widow. Harry becomes engaged to Elinor on the eve of his departure for a year in Europe. But, when Jane Graham unexpectedly shows up in Paris, Harry gradually becomes infatuated with her beauty and growing sophistication.

"The editor has great confidence in the principles, taste, and intelligence of the real author of Elinor Wyllys," states James Fenimore Cooper in the forward of this novel written by his own daughter under the pseudonym Amabele Penfeather.

(summary from "Elinor Wyllys: The Story of Susan Fenimore Cooper's Novel" by Hugh C. MacDougall)