Louisa is set in her ways, she likes to keep her house meticulously clean, wear multiple aprons, and eat from her nicest china every day.

When Joe arrives on one of his twice weekly visits, Louisa attempts to have a conversation with him, but is distracted when he tracks dirt on the floor, re-arranges her books, and accidentally knocks things over.

The last line of the story is: "Louisa sat, prayerfully numbering her days, like an uncloistered nun."

After returning from Australia, he meets Lily and in the short months before his marriage to the protagonist, falls in love with her.

Louisa describes her as "tall and full-figured, with a firm, fair face, her strong, yellow hair braided in a close knot".

Her honor would not allow Joe to leave Louisa: "I've got good sense an' I ain't going to break my heart nor make a fool of myself; but I'm never going to be married, you can be sure of that.

Just like the dog, Louisa has not permanently left the home in over 14 years, as he is chained up after biting a neighbor.

The dog is also a warning for Joe, for the only reason he is allowed outside the limits of the land is to walk with his mistress as she leads him by a heavy chain.

"Somewhere in the distance the cows were lowing, and a little bell was tinkling; now and then a farm-wagon tilted by, and the dust flew; some blue-shirted laborers with shovels over their shoulders plodded past; little swarms of flies were dancing up and down before the peoples' faces in the soft air."

Through this small scene the reader feels the presence of nature and the rhythm to which people and time march on in the New England landscape.

Dr. Jesse S. Crisler, a scholar specializing in literary realism,[3] notes in his class lectures that the opening and closing scenes of the piece are reminiscent of Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".

When both parties realize there is no affinity for one another, there are no arguments or fights but a simple conversation that leads to an honorable ending for both Louisa and Joe.

Tall shrubs of blueberry and meadow-sweet, all woven together and tangled with blackberry vines and horsebriers, shut her in on either side."

There are a number of religious inferences to the text, which give the piece a feeling for the deep devotion of Louisa to her way of life.

The passage expresses an awareness of the loss of a good opportunity, but the greater joy came from the "pottage" of the life she already knew.