The story is that of a motherless child who is taken under the wing of her Aunt Charlotte, a devout woman who "goes far beyond the ordinary amenities of Lutheran teaching." When Linda attains the age of twenty, she learns that Peter Steinmarc has offered to make her his wife. The reader is told that he has previously proposed many times to Charlotte Staubach, who declined the honor and reminded Peter that he would become owner of the house now in Linda's name, if he should become Linda's husband. On being told of his marital intentions by her Aunt Charlotte, Linda immediately refuses, but she becomes "very wretched." A few details tell why: She told herself that sooner or later her aunt would conquer her, that sooner or later that mean-faced old man, with his snuffy fingers, and his few straggling hairs brushed over his bald pate, with his big shoes spreading here and there because of his corns, and his ugly, loose, square, snuffy coat, and his old hat which he had worn so long that she never liked to touch it, would become her husband, and that it would be her duty to look after his wine, and his old shoes, and his old hat, and to have her own little possessions doled out to her by his penuriousness. This then is the story, and it plays out with the added complication of Linda's being in love with the young man who lives across the little river behind her house. He is in and out of jail because of his political radicalism, but Linda knows little of this. They attempt an elopement, but it fails when young Ludovic is apprehended by the police at the Augsburg station when their train arrives. Linda had the pluck to run away with Ludovic, and in the end she has the pluck to run away on her own, but though she confronts her aunt several times, she never can bring herself to face her and refute her. When Aunt Charlotte plays the prayer card, Linda never refuses to kneel and listen to the degrading and humiliating prayers offered on her behalf. The feminist agenda was one that the conservative Trollope never subscribed to, but his stories were too true to life to conceal women's problems. Perhaps his stories got away from him, and the women's stories told themselves. In this one, poor Linda finds herself totally powerless under the domination of her aunt, as no man would be. The world appears to be conspiring to keep her from breaking out of her aunt's smothering sphere. When she leaves the house to go consult an old friend of her late father's, Herr Molk tells her that she should submit herself to her elders and her betters.