I was far more swept up in the drama of this 19th-century novel than I expected to be! I enjoy a good old-fashioned marriage plot, but Margaret Oliphant has a tendency to do a marriage plot with a slightly misandrist twist. The twist, here, is that Elinor marries a sexy man and won't listen to anyone's criticism of her choice. The sexy man turns out to be pretty terrible, so... spoiler... she leaves him! With their son! And she won't listen to anyone's criticism of that choice, either! Elinor 100% does what she wants and takes no guff about it. And, although she has her fair share of struggles, everything turns out more or less. No karmic punishments for this BAMF.