Martha Leigh narrates the story from a distance of many years. She introduces herself with a physical description and a brief version of the "prescribed formula" that brings her to a position as governess in an unknown family in an unfamiliar part of the country. She is a "gentlewoman" in "penurious circumstances." Having failed to marry by the age of twentyfour, a governess's position is her only other option. Martha describes herself as plain, with brown eyes that she has been told are "too bold." And she does have a bold personality. Even on the train journey to her duties in Cornwall, she allows herself to enter a fateful conversation with a strange man.

Throughout the story, she is very aware of conventions, but if common sense, human judgment or, finally, love, prompt her to overstep convention, she does. She is a gentlewoman, but not a prig. Martha...