Two sisters, daughters of a draper of Bursley (Burslem, one of the Five Towns), are portrayed from ardent girlhood, through disillusionment, to death Constance, a staid and sensible young woman, marries the estimable and superficially insignificant Samuel Povey, and spends all her life in Bursley The more passionate and imaginative Sophia elopes with the fascinating but unprincipled Gerald Scales, who carries her off to Paris where she suffers many indignities and is finally deserted But the sisters are reunited, and spend their last years together in Bursley