The Green Dolphin

The Green Dolphin by Sara Ware Bassett is a novel written in the early 20th century. Set on Cape Cod, it follows shy, orderly bachelor Asaph Holmes, whose marriage to the lively Althea Morton disrupts his comfortable routines and tests his bond with his guileless friend Lemuel Gill, all while a seaside tea-room called the Green Dolphin becomes their new venture. Blending humor and heart, it paints a small-town portrait of friendship, marriage, and community chatter. The opening of the novel introduces Asaph’s eccentric, paper‑strewn bachelor life (rescued at intervals by stern housecleaner Hannah Dole), his sudden enchantment with Althea at the Brewsters’, and his anxious secrecy with his closest friend, Lemmy. He marries Althea in a quiet ceremony, Lemmy earns her goodwill with a heartfelt bouquet, and Belleport buzzes with curiosity as Althea refreshes the cottage and the trio settles into a winter routine with small frictions. Come spring, Althea’s hunger for sociability sparks a bold plan: a tea-room—the Green Dolphin—complete with green-painted chairs, stenciled dolphins, and a roadside sign, while Asaph, dubious but devoted, does the handiwork as she advertises widely. On the very eve of opening, Althea rushes to help her sister in Abington after a child’s accident, leaving a bewildered Asaph to face the first day alone as Lemmy arrives, astonished, to find the Dolphin about to launch without its captain.