Hetty's Garden-party

Hetty Golding is bright, affectionate, and full of energy, but her longing to seem grander than her modest life can support leads her into trouble. Thrilled by the visit of her wealthy cousins, Harry and Lettice, she dreams up a fashionable garden-party to impress her friends and copy the habits of richer families, even borrowing a neighboring garden to complete the illusion. Her practical widowed mother warns her against expense and pretence, but Hetty pushes ahead, sending out invitations, hiding her lack of money, and trusting that appearances will carry the day. Instead, the party becomes a humiliating test of pride and honesty. The food runs short, the guests mock the shabby arrangements, and the gardener angrily exposes the trespass. As debts, gossip, and family distress mount, Hetty is forced to confront the cost of her vanity, the strain on her mother, and the painful gap between social ambition and reality. When illness, poverty, and fear leave the household desperate, Hetty at last begins to change, confessing her faults, seeking help, and learning humility through shame, grief, and hard necessity. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.