Who is Hettie Roper from The Eye in the Door and what is their importance?

Hettie is the younger daughter of shopkeeper Beattie Roper. Hettie is a schoolteacher. Since her mother's imprisonment, Hettie has lived alone in back of the shop in Salford. Like her mother, Hettie Roper is a pacifist and a believer in women's suffrage. Hettie dated Billy Prior for a short while when she and Billy were teenagers but they are now just friends. Hettie is more literate than her mother, as evidenced in her letter to Beattie in Chapter 7. Hettie is involved with Patrick MacDowell, a conscientious objector. Hettie loses trust and respect for Billy Prior after she finds out that Billy turned MacDowell in to the authorities.