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A young heiress rejects her stepmother’s and a calculating suitor’s plans to bind her fortune through marriage to his son. Their campaign uses social pressure, deception, and manipulative advisers while the son struggles between ambition and guilt over a prior secret marriage and the presumed death of his first wife. Courts of love and coercion intertwine with family intrigue as letters, alliances, and departures complicate the pursuit of wealth and respectability. The narrative traces the emotional consequences of that scheming, exploring conscience, romantic entanglement, and the uses of power in social climbing.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
The following changes were made:
p. 72: Blight’s changed to Wroat’s (Mrs. Wroat’s chamber,)
p. 93: Unclear text assumed to be “A half (”A half an hour,“)
p. 243: missing word assumed to be for (scorn for her)
p. 246: Missing word assumed to be “He (him. ”He says)