The plot of the book contrasts with the life of two ladies Hazelden, named Maria and Lesbia. Lady Mary Hazelden is much more meek and stereotypically feminine than other heroes of sensational novels such as Alicia Audley, Marian Halcomb and Magdalen Vanstone. She falls in love with a poor man named Mr. Hammond and is trying to learn how to work to compensate for her lower social status after she marries him. Her grandmother seems not to mind if she gets married because she has freckles and tanned skin, because the Victorian ideal of beauty probably resembles a vampire.
