Eliza Boylston

Eliza is the middle daughter of a wealthy family and she grows up with all the privileges that wealth and the accompanying social position can buy. She desires love from an early age and often finds herself seeking out the relative warmth of the kitchen where one of the family's slaves, Cassie, is in charge. There, she forges a relationship with Cassie's son, Toby, and is heartbroken when her father sells Toby because the family has hit a financial crisis.

Eliza soon develops a sense of what is important that goes above and beyond what most people in her class consider important. She is flattered when George Inman begins to court her, but she has come to realize that he is selfish and shallow by the time he proposes. Despite the fact that he could have provided a wealthy, social lifestyle, she turns down his proposal because...