She was a great power in the house, and both her languid, incompetent mother, and her pretty sister were often afraid of her.

Nora was a "Home Student," and had just begun to work seriously for English Literature Honours.

Alice on the other hand was the domestic and social daughter.

She helped her mother in the house, had a head full of undergraduates, and regarded the "Eights" week and Commemoration as the shining events of the year.
Both girls were however at one in the uneasy or excited anticipation with which they were looking forward that evening to the arrival of a newcomer, who was, it seemed, to make part of the household for some time.

Their father, Dr.Ewen Hooper, the holder of a recently founded classical readership, had once possessed a younger sister of considerable beauty, who, in the course of an independent and adventurous career, had captured--by no ignoble arts--a widower, who happened to be also an earl and a rich man.