Songfacts®:

• This was Scott Joplin's first published work; copyrighted February 20, 1895, it is not a rag but surprisingly is written in waltz time, or perhaps not so surprisingly, because unlike most or all contemporary black musicians and songwriters, Joplin was classically trained. A fair effort for a first attempt, this parlor love song could easily have been written by any of the European songsmiths of the day.
  
  Joplin's biographer Edward Berlin has suggested he may have had some assistance from Marie Walker, a local musician who ran a music store with her husband. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England