this, her first novel as Victoria InHolt, the author establishes her interest in an issue that will inform all of the Holt novels and will become more pronounced through three decades, that is, the independence of women and their right to live a full life, one in which mind and heart are balanced.

Martha Leigh, the narrator, is intelligent and well educated, but is forced to earn her living as a governess because she will not compromise her sense of herself to attract a husband.

While she maintains a sense of the class difference between herself and the TreMellyns and their friends, she is never anything less than as dignified, decent, cultured, and intelligent as her social betters.

Her independent spirit and selfconfidence are directly connected to the picture of the institution of marriage that Holt constructs. Connan TreMellyn, the master of Mellyn, is a widower...