Ever since his early married days Joseph Ember has suffered from extreme ill-temper. So determined is he that his daughter Hester shall never marry, but shall stay single to look after him when her mother is gone, that he forbids her even to wander in the garden lest she should see, or be seen by, a man. This enforced seclusion has given her the reputation of a good and virtuous woman in a world not renowned either for goodness or for virtue, and Lord Dagenwood who, by a rich aunt's will, is required to marry such a woman in some haste comes to ask for her hand. But Hester, in spite of her father's strictness, has managed to acquire a young man of her own, one Tom Cudlipp, who being assistant to an apothecary, has concocted a potion with which he hopes to sweeten Joseph's temper. Neither Hester nor her mother will consent to administer this, as Mrs Ember is convinced it is poison, though after being reduced to tears by her husband she is tempted to do so, whatever the consequences. Tom, however, finds an opportunity to slip it into the gruel, with the result that when Joseph awakes from his post-prandial nap he is filled with the sunniest benevolence - and all the result of Cudlipp's cure for digestive dis-harmony. He is only too happy to give Hester to Tom; he is delighted when Lord Dagenwood finds his virtuous woman in Hester's country cousin Tilly; and he is determined to go into partnership with Tom to exploit the new prescription.