From the Housetops

A proposed marriage turns a family fortune into a source of bitter conflict in New York society. Wealthy Templeton Thorpe, aged seventy-seven, plans to marry Anne Tresslyn, the young woman his grandson Braden still considers his fiancée. Braden confronts Anne's mother, who openly treats the match as a financial decision. A promised settlement of two million dollars gives their argument a precise and uncomfortable price.

George Barr McCutcheon builds this romance around sharp conversations about affection, inheritance and social ambition. Mrs. Tresslyn's confidence meets Braden's anger, while the narrator watches the manners and calculations of their circle with dry humor. The medical profession also enters the story through Braden and his discussions with older doctors about conscience and responsibility. Readers interested in the pressures behind respectable appearances will find a novel that places private loyalty alongside money and professional judgment.