Daisy Miller

1891

When Frederick Forsyth Winterbourne, an American expatriate traveling in Europe, meets the newly rich Miller family from New York, he is charmed by the daughter, Daisy, and her ''inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence.'' The Millers have no perception of the complex behavioral code that underlies European society, and Winterbourne is astonished at the girl's unworldliness and her mother's unconcern when Daisy accompanies him to the Castle of Chillon. Some months later, he meets the family in Rome, where Daisy has aroused suspicion among the American colony by being seen constantly with a third-rate Italian. Ostracized by former friends who think her ''intrigue'' has gone too far, Daisy denies that she is engaged to Giovanelli. Publicly, Winterbourne defends her as simply uncultivated, but privately, he hesitates.