On the very day her youngest child, learned to toddle without assistance, Mrs. Spencer announced her intention to establish a hospital for the orphaned children of Lesser Chipping and surrounding villages. Meanwhile, the duties of managing the vicarage and the charity work for the parish have fallen to her oldest daughter Honoria, and Honoria has had enough. The trouble is, a gently bred girl cannot simply leave home and take up a career. The solution, therefore, is marriage, but to whom? Her only suitor is Mr. Whitham, and she cannot possibly marry Mr. Whitham, a stuffy landholder with broad shoulders and no brains to speak of. Hope dawns in the person of Mr. Carstairs, a gentleman of questionable background, and peerless wealth and charm. Before she knows it, Honoria is head over heels, if not in love, then at least in competition with her arch-rival Louisa Allenby who has openly set her cap for the romantic stranger. Honoria might be overmatched, but she finds a mentor in Mr. Carstairs' friend and business manager Mr. Bowes. Bowes has been charged with getting Mr. Carstairs suitably married and settled down, and he has selected Honoria as the perfect wife ... for Carstairs, of course. A handsome, good-humored girl with a generous, if managing disposition, Honoria is hard-pressed to cultivate an air of charming, doll-like helplessness. Nevertheless, Mr. Bowes assures her that Carstairs likes nothing better than to rescue defenseless maidens, so Honoria does her best. She is aided more by good (or bad) luck than any of her own native cunning. After all, it is Louisa's fault Honoria falls out of the boat, and the riding accident is hardly to her credit; as Mr. Bowes is obliged to point out, "Any common female can topple from a great, galloping animal if she has the least ingenuity." In the end, Honoria is her own worst enemy; she can't resist introducing Mr. Carstairs to Miss Jimson, the spinster companion of the grotesque Mrs. Mander. Very unwise of her. It appears Miss Jimson was exactly the sort of maiden Mr. Carstairs would feel compelled to rescue, and before Honoria knows what is what, her prospective groom has eloped with someone else. Strangely, Honoria is not much disturbed by the disaster--not nearly so much as Mr. Bowes who is thoroughly disgusted with his friend's taste in brides. Honoria comforts Mr. Bowes with the suggestion that if he must make amends for Mr. Carstairs treatment of her, he ought to marry Honoria himself, which, it as it turns out, is a much more satisfactory arrangement for all concerned