"...Determined to regain a fashionable standard of living, and fully aware of the power of beauty, she focuses her attention on making her daughters suitable for marriage to wealthy men who will support her as well...Through love affairs, financial reversal, hypocrisy, and deceit that follow, Rebecca Rush provides both a condemnation of avarice, and, perhaps unintentionally, a fascinating look into early America's efforts to find its own place between its British class-based heritage, a democratic ideal, and a rapidly developing hierarchy based upon economic success."
"...Determined to regain a fashionable standard of living, and fully aware of the power of beauty, she focuses her attention on making her daughters suitable for marriage to wealthy men who will support her as well...Through love affairs, financial reversal, hypocrisy, and deceit that follow, Rebecca Rush provides both a condemnation of avarice, and, perhaps unintentionally, a fascinating look into early America's efforts to find its own place between its British class-based heritage, a democratic ideal, and a rapidly developing hierarchy based upon economic success."
(E.B., p. 275)