** spoiler alert ** Fred Neville becomes the heir to Earl Scroope and insists on one final year with his regiment before moving to Scroope Manor and learning about the estate. His regiment is in Ireland and, while there, Fred falls in love with the penniless and almost alone in the world Kate O'Hara. He promises to marry her, despite knowing his uncle and aunt will be unwilling to accept her. Then he decides he will marry her after his uncle's death. Kate becomes pregnant. Fred decides that he owes it to the family not to marry her and dreams of living abroad with her and letting his brother Jack manage the estate. Then his uncle dies and he is indeed the earl and reaches a final decision.

Despite the misery of the plot, I found this novel a light, easy read. The characterization of Fred was well-done and by the time he reached his final decision I was ready to murder him myself. Jack, the brother, was a good foil and contrast and I wish there had been more of him and Sophie. The section where the Dowager Countess repents of her advice to Fred to abandon Kate (on religious grounds) was a nice touch. There was also a very sympathetic section where the narrator muses on the more terrible consequences women bear from sex outside marriage and how the treatment of "fallen women" is perhaps a deterrent but also very heartless.

Kate was the weakest character in the book and we saw nothing of her decision to sleep with Fred (understandable, given the book's publication date), but part of me wanted to ask her what on earth she was thinking! ( )

Trollope's admiration for George Eliot was genuine. He was flabberghasted at the amount of 'research' she did. He also felt that her novels might be too learned for her readers: 'Do not fire over the heads of your readers', he advised. ( )