To sweet Honoria Newcombe, the news that she was a burden to her maiden aunts came as a shock, and she resolved at once to relieve her beloved aunts of the financial strain she had unwittingly become. Honoria confers with her friend Emily Blackwood, who realizes Honoria's only hope is marriage. And so Honoria enters into a marriage of convenience with Alexander, Emily's own brother. This begins a comedy of errors so involved that nearly a year is required to unravel its tangled intricacies. Our heroine starts her life at Sweet's Folly, the Blackwood family home, and must learn to deal with the machinations of her spurned suitor, Claude Kemp, and the hilarious antics of her aunts. And, when a stroke of great good fortune sends Emily, Alexander, and Honoria to London, there is also a most extraordinary transformation to be reckoned with: shy, scholarly Alexander has become a perfect devil with the ladies!