A foreign pair—Eugenia, Baroness Münster, and her younger brother Felix Young—arrive in Boston from Europe and quickly set the novel’s social engine turning. The Baroness, a brilliant, mannered woman of ambiguous rank (a morganatic marriage to a minor German prince), is at once irritated and amused by the new world; Felix, an attractive, irresponsible Bohemian painter, is delighted by everything. From a dingy hotel overlooking a snow-darkened graveyard their keen, witty talk establishes the contrasts that will occupy the narrative: European display and theatricality against New England reserve and conscientiousness.

Sent by curiosity and the hope of advantage to call upon their American kin, they are lodged in the simple Wentworth household in the country—a moral, prosperous family presided over by the austere Mr. Wentworth and including his daughters Charlotte and Gertrude, his son Clifford, and the circle’s steady figures, Robert Acton (a worldly, cultivated bachelor) and Mr. Brand (a grave, devout young clergyman). The Baroness’s foreign charm and Felix’s sociability disturb and delight the household in equal measure. Felix is warmly received; Eugenia fascinates the women and troubles the men by her combination of tact, coquettish power, and occasional hauteur.

Felix promptly falls in love with Gertrude Wentworth, a thoughtful, restrained young woman whom the family had hoped to guide into a steady, decorous life—possibly allied with Mr. Brand. Gertrude resists that conventional prospect; she is drawn instead to Felix’s lively outlook. Meanwhile Eugenia is courted by Robert Acton, whose respect and affection she admires but whose steady, provincial life she finds uncongenial. She is also the centre of small intrigues: she teases, instructs, and propounds plans—most comically, to “improve” Clifford by sending him to Europe—while her own motives remain an artful blend of earnestness, amusement, and self-interest.

Tensions resolve with a characteristic blend of generosity and provincial earnestness. Felix pleads his suit; Gertrude declares her determination; in a decisive, unostentatious moment Mr. Brand—long the suitor and moral guardian—offers, in his ministerial capacity, to unite the young pair, thereby facilitating the marriage and removing impediments of duty and decorum. Eugenia, after wavering about marriage to Acton and chafing at the limits of American social soil, refuses his proposal and returns to Europe. Other domestic threads are tied: Clifford and Lizzie Acton marry; Charlotte ultimately marries Mr. Brand; Robert Acton later marries after his mother’s death. Felix and Gertrude depart joyfully for a wider life abroad.

The story is a temperate comedy of manners: a study of cultural collision, social obligation, and the gentle rearrangements by which personal liberty, family prudence, and romantic impulse find accommodation. It celebrates both foreign glamour and provincial steadiness while mildly satirizing the pretensions and consolations of each.