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When Frances reached the end of her childhood, Cleveland stood ready to offer her his guidance on the major choices that confront every adolescent girl. She was an excellent student with a genuine curiosity about things, whose teachers appreciated the extra effort she put into her schoolwork. Tall, about five foot seven, she had rich chestnut hair that cascaded onto her shoulders, and dreamy violet eyes. She had blossomed into a young lady of indisputable glamour and what her cousin Isabel Harmon had called “witchery.”

Frances had just begun her senior year at Central High School in Buffalo, the city’s preeminent public high school, when she became besotted with Mr. Charles Townsend. A few weeks later, she dropped out, announcing that she was getting engaged to young Townsend. This hit Cleveland like a swift kick in the teeth.

Frances’s departure from school upset Cleveland for several reasons, not least of which was that he had suggested she enroll at Central High, so he took her failure to graduate personally. Then there was this Townsend fellow.

Charles Townsend came from solid stock: His grandfather, also named Charles Townsend, had founded the Buffalo Savings Bank and been one of Niagara County’s first sitting judges. Eight years older than Frances Folsom when they announced their engagement, Charles had lived with his parents in Europe for five years during which he studied in Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany. He had a wry sense of humor, and in his breezy writing style, he wrote articles that he submitted to travel magazines and the Buffalo newspapers. After his father’s death in Germany, Townsend returned to Buffalo to study at the Auburn Theological Seminary with the intention of becoming an ordained Presbyterian minister when he asked Frances to marry him.

The wedding of Frances Folsom and Charles Townsend would have been deemed a fine match between two socially connected Buffalo families. Alas, their engagement lasted just a few weeks before Frances sent her fiancé a “Dear Charles” letter. In the envelope, she also sent back the ring. As breakups go, it was amicable, and Townsend never bore a grudge. What role, if any, Grover Cleveland may have played in the drama remains a mystery, but with young Townsend out of the picture, the way was clear for Cleveland to pursue an unambiguously romantic relationship with Frances Folsom. (Townsend, it seemed, could never escape Cleveland’s shadow. When he died in 1914, Townsend’s address was 55 Cleveland Street in Orange, New Jersey; and on his deathbed, he officiated at the wedding of his daughter Gladys to a Mr. Guy Cleveland—no relation to Grover.)

It was decided that Frances would attend college. Cleveland pulled a few strings and obtained certification from Central High School that Frances had completed her studies in good standing. Then, with Cleveland’s encouragement, she settled on Wells College on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake in Auburn, about 120 miles from Buffalo. Cayuga Lake is one of a chain of lakes in New York’s Finger Lakes region, so named for their similar shape.

Frances satisfied the language requirements, passing entrance exams in Latin and German (she also spoke French), and in February 1882, although she had dropped out of high school and skipped the entire fall semester of college, she was admitted to Wells as a freshman with “advanced standing.”

In those days, Wells College enrolled only women and was run like a finishing school though it boasted a respectable liberal arts curriculum. Every afternoon the students, in long formal dresses, gathered to sip tea from china cups. Frances played the piano and took classes in painting and photography, but she also took challenging courses in botany, geometry, trigonometry, astronomy, geology, and logic; and she was close to being a straight-A student.

Her roommate, Ms. Katherine “Pussy” Willard, had a beautiful singing voice, spoke fluent German, and was the niece of the famous suffragette Frances