The narrative centers on a weathered country manor and its inhabitants: a newly wealthy, stingy proprietor who married late and placed his beautiful but impoverished daughter in a convent; a devoted, eccentric spinster aunt who supports the niece with frugal generosity and lives in a cave-like dwelling; and the young woman whose beauty and circumstances shape family ambitions. Detailed descriptions of house and gardens frame a study of vanity, thrift, familial loyalty, and social pretension, contrasting an idealization of beauty with narrow-mindedness and the influence of money on intimate relationships.