"The Surgeon's Daughter" is chiefly remarkable for its disregard of the unities of time and place. Though one of the shorter novels, its action extends through more than a quarter of a century, involving a great variety of characters and scenes widely remote, in all of which action the "Daughter" herself is little more than a lay figure.

Dr. Gideon Gray, an estimable Scotch village surgeon, gives professional attention in his home to a masked lady, to whom a son is born. The lady proves to be Zilia de Mongada, daughter of a proud Portuguese Jew, who soon after reclaims her, but leaves her illegitimate child in the care of the surgeon. He is christened Richard Middlemas—the last being the name of the village—and grows up under the good practitioner's roof with more or less exaggerated ideas of his obscure parentage. The surgeon's only daughter, Menie, is his constant playmate, and when the two young people are barely grown they plight their troth ...