The House of Fulfilment

Seventeen-year-old Harriet Blair watches her brother Alexander marry Molly Randolph in New Orleans and wonders what brings such different people together. Her own prosperous Louisville family values restraint, duty and strict religious habits. Molly comes from a household known for generous hospitality and easy sociability. When Harriet later accompanies Molly and her baby to a Louisiana plantation, music, visitors and an unexpected baptism unsettle the standards she has grown up with.

George Madden Martin develops this Southern novel through contrasts between family discipline and the pleasure of being welcomed. In a later scene, Molly and her daughter Alexina enter a lively social circle, where dances, flowers and admiring attention give Alexina a new confidence. Close attention to embarrassment, affection and money makes the book a study of how private feelings take shape under the pressure of family expectations and social approval.