"The tale is that of a young and singularly ill-balanced poet who lives hermit-wise in a lonely farmhouse called Dreaming River. To him comes for protection a girl of sixteen, a penniless orphan, who turns to him as her only kin in obedience to the last wish of her dying father. The growth of love between them, perturbed by blizzards and cyclones, both without and within, makes up the rest of the story, which ends with Dorothy's surrender." —Nation.
"This little story would be negligible were it not for its underlying theme, which possesses sufficient psychologic interest to save the discussion of the work from the pettiness of breaking a butterfly." —Nation.
...and more explicit details about the story,
The author has selected for the scene of this story an out-of-the-way spot on the prairies of Minnesota. Here, many miles from any civilization, lives Jasper Knowles, a poet and philosopher. Upon this quiet and lonely scene appears his young cousin Dorothy Whitfield, who, being left alone in the world after her father's death, starts West to join her uncle. Arriving at Dreaming River only to find that this relative is dead, she makes her home with his son Jasper. The poet falls in love with his charming cousin, which for a long time she bitterly resents and in consequence threatens to leave his home. Finally he consents to her going away, but when she is accidentally the cause of his being wounded with a revolver and nurses him back to health, she discovers that she love the poetic dreamer and prefers to remain at Dreaming River.