This is an even more straightforward country-house romance than Crotchet Castle, with even more occasions for remarkably comfortable men to sniff at the foolish changes made by 'improvers', principally the idea of advancement by examination; they do huff very effectively at the idea that passing an exam in Greek makes a good engineer, but they rather pass over the system, if any, previously used to promote engineers. On the other hand, it maps so perfectly to the same kind of political argument now that it was still a bit funny.
There's a sort of Bunthorpe who is so in love with the abstract ideal of Womanhood that his household is run by seven well-educated but working-class sisters, who have half the building to themselves and do all the work in pairs to avert cruel gossip. They all marry local rustic suitors, in a ninefold wedding with the two gentry couples. Perhaps this was meant to provide comic relief or a choral effect, but they hardly get to speak.
One delightful bit of material history:
Twelfth-night was the night of the ball. [...] The carpets had been taken up, and the floors were painted with forms in chalk by skillful artists...
And Peacock footnotes that with a quotation from Wordsworth using the metaphor "like Forms with chalk/Painted on rich men's floors". Slippery to dance on, I wonder, or like rosin? How much would it cut into varnish? Hmmm...
Peacock, Thomas Love. Gryll Grange. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1896.
So wrote clew in Fiction (19th c.).