The narrative follows a middle-class family uprooted to a provincial city, tracing the husband's reluctance and the wife's practical management as they settle into a new house; their daughters respond differently, one frivolous and press-obsessed, the other thoughtful. Social ambitions, household economics, and expectations about marriage and appearances shape daily life, while local color and civic detail illuminate class anxieties, domestic negotiations, and quiet ironies about aspiration and compromise.