Time has thinned old households and darkened old reputations in this richly atmospheric tale of family loss, social change, and first love. Charles Vernon is gone, his widow lives in sorrowful seclusion, and the bank below carries the stain of suspicion, while at the vicarage an aging scholar grieves the empty place left by wife and children. Into that quiet comes Helen Mainwaring, a bright, imaginative orphan whose beauty and quick sympathy bring warmth back into the house. Protected by the vicar, Helen's future is shadowed by her parents' ruin and by the claims of Lucretia Dalibard, whose mysterious letter summons her to London and hints at buried family secrets. There, the paths of the earnest, ambitious John Ardworth and the carefree, wealthy Percival St. John begin to converge against the backdrop of a nation in motion, from the spectacle of William IV's coronation to the stark misery of the poor. When Percival rescues Helen from danger in the crowd, a moonlit meeting in St. James's Park sparks a tender, fateful attraction that leaves both changed. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.