In this book we have a scheming person in Ellen Johnston. And with the typical fascination of the adolescent person for the man of the house, Ellen concentrates all her whiles on her father.
That she is more intelligent and precocious than most adolescence only serves to make the games more intricate and to widen the circle of her conquests from her own boyfriend to her father, then to her older sister and her sister's boyfriend.
Why does she succeed, we may wonder. Only because the entire family atmosphere is one of indifference with the fears and self-doubts that that brings.
