"Of all these queries perhaps the easiest one to answer is that of the narra-

tor's identity. Annie's companion/abductor is Hawthome himself. Aside from

the fact that within the tale he unequivocally calis attention to his identity as a

writer, his contemporaries took this fact for granted on account of one of the aut-

hor's identifying marks, his smile. Annie is admittedly charmed by the narra-

tor's smile, and that is precisely the reputation Hawthome had among family

and friends. Also, Sketches in the nineteenth century were often presented by a

narrator who was assumed by the readers to be the author himself. For instance,

Robert Cantwell believed that «"Little Annie's Ramble" is a story of Hawthor-

ne and Anne Marión Forrester, the child of Charlotte Story and John Forrester.»

(Cantwell, 1948: 137). All this consensus seems to settle the matter. "