At Henbury Lodge, Francis Hartland arrives as the perfect country mystery: quiet, prosperous, and so plain in manner that the neighborhood invents a romance for him before it knows the facts. In truth, he has simply sought the ordered comfort he always knew with his devoted mother, and his respectable habits only deepen the local fascination. Around him, gossip, ambition, and matchmaking begin to stir. No one is more active than Jemima Ferret, a fifty-year-old spinster turned expert manipulator of courtship, who sees Hartland as an ideal prize. When lively, attractive Miss Robinson appears with a modest fortune and an unmarried reputation ripe for speculation, Ferret moves into action, using wit, flattery, and social engineering to draw the pair together. At dinners, visits, and card tables, she carefully shapes every encounter, even while managing Sir Roger Goodman's pride and temper. Meanwhile, the emotional center of the household turns on Zorilda and Algernon, whose attachment is strained by duty, class anxiety, and Mrs. Hartland's hopes for a more advantageous match. As Mrs. Hartland schemes to impress the Marquess of Turnstock, the novel satirizes provincial vanity, romantic uncertainty, and the uneasy negotiations between feeling, fortune, and social rank. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.