This entry in the Barsetshire series opens with characters’ realization that Lucy Adams is carrying a child, but then it jumps forward. Around about the same time, Tom Grantly meets the dreadful Geoffrey Harvey and begins to have doubts about his farm work. He has been happy working on Martin Leslie’s farm with Emmy Graham, but he doesn’t think there’s a career in it. So, he takes a job working for Harvey in the Red Tape and Sealing Wax Department. However, Harvey is known for making his underlings’ lives miserable, and within a year, Tom is ready to quit but doesn’t know how to explain to his father that he wants to change his career yet again.
Commander Cecil Waring has returned to the Priory to take up residence in his part of the house after taking in some shrapnel that the Navy doctors couldn’t find. It is floating around in his body and will either emerge or kill him. In the other part of the house, Philip White and his wife Leslie, Cecil’s sister, are having such success with their prep school that they are looking around for a bigger building.
Cecil meets Lady Cora Palliser, the Duke of Omnium’s daughter, and is much struck by her. However, he thinks she’s paying too much attention to Tom.
The new Lord Lufton makes everyone’s acquaintance. He is young, shy, and overwhelmed by his new responsibilities. He is also very kind and is at first attracted by Clarissa Graham until he sees her behaving rudely to Charles Belton.
Fans of the series may be pleased to find that this novel features the reappearance of almost every character who has ever appeared, with the added attraction of no less than four betrothals. Mrs. Morland, the author of a popular series of novels, always says they are all alike. Perhaps the Barsetshire novels are, too, but their charm is in finding out what happens to characters we know and in meeting new ones.
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