Finley, Martha

Elsie, now twenty-one years old, wishes to marry an old friend but her father decrees she must first learn to manage her inheritance, including her mother's Louisiana sugar plantation and its slaves.

As Elsie and Edward experience the joys of parenthood, the Civil War begins and ends, with terrible losses to their families.

While visiting an elderly, eccentric great-aunt in Ohio, eighteen-year-old Elsie is courted by a young man who has been sent by her uncle Arthur to win not only her hand, but her fortune as well.

During her tenth summer, Elsie is reunited with old friends, travels throughout New England, and introduces her father to the woman who will become her new mother.

Having refused to violate her religious principles, even at her father's command, nine-year-old Elsie and her father both suffer terribly during his recuperation from a serious illness, especially since his stepmother encourages the rift between them.

Eight-year-old heiress Elsie Dinsmore feels unloved and rejected while living at her grandmother's Southern plantation, and relies on her deep Christian faith to pull her through the dark times and keep alive the hope that her father, whom she has never met, will return to claim her.