The Fortunes of the Farrells

The Fortunes of the Farrells, by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey, begins with Chapter One, From Pretence to Reality. A speaker in a room where the fire has died down to a dull red glow asks a woman addressed as Berengaria what she generally does with her old court trains.

A speaker tells Ruth that nothing comes to mind as a way for her to earn a living, and the talk turns to nursing and to working as a companion. Chapter Two, An Evening at Home, says that the father of Ruth and Mollie Farrell had died when the latter was two years old, leaving his wife but a few hundred pounds with which to support herself and her children. The text says that Mollie, instead of behaving like the proverbial ministering angel, proved uncertain, coy and hard to please, and so full of mischievous pranks that Jack declared his hair was turning white. Dr Maclure says he will come in too on one condition, that Ruth is willing to drive beside him all the way.