In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim - Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1899

I'd seen this referenced on many FHB title pages (in the "author of" list), but knew nothing about it--I would have guessed it was one of her few European historicals like A Lady of Quality, and would have been wrong. It's actually set in the U.S., and the title refers to a claim for damages from the Civil War. The protagonists have to move from North Carolina to D.C. for almost a year to pursue the claim with the government, and the depiction of the city back then is fascinating--Dupont Circle is referred to as a residential backwater--but that's not the core of the book. It's primarily about lazy, carefree Big Tom, postmaster and general store keeper in a tiny town, and the changes he undergoes after adopting an orphaned infant girl. Her mysterious origins are eventually revealed along with Tom's, and everything resolves very satisfactorily. It's one of Burnett's sprawling, ambitious works, bringing together many plot threads and third-person perspectives, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The subplot about two out-of-wedlock pregnancies isn't at all psychologically believable, but Burnett's liberal-for-her-times views are interesting.