Frances Kane's Fortune

A June day in the garden finds Frances Kane calculating which fruit to sell and how to reduce the cost of flowers. At the Firs in northern England, she manages the household, servants and grounds while her father relies on her advice. The family's mortgaged land makes every expense matter. Two letters disturb this routine: Frances receives one from Australia, and her father learns that their young relative Fluff will come to live with them after her mother's death.

L. T. Meade's collection of stories brings practical responsibilities into contact with affection and personal hopes. Frances, who is twenty-eight, must balance her father's enthusiasm with the question of paying for another member of the household. A later scene shows her persuading Mrs. Carnegie to take a carriage drive and give money to people in need. Readers interested in domestic fiction will find close attention to how a capable woman's tact shapes family life and turns conversation into useful action.