Mrs. Hammond disapproves of the relationship because she needs Emily to marry someone wealthy in order to keep herself and her family from sinking into abject poverty.
To accomplish this plan, she pays off all her debts and all the property she can under the guise of grief, and moves to the country to save her money.
There she waits until her children are old enough to marry, and spends the time making them into cultured young ladies: Lucy and Emily Hammond.
While Lucy absorbs the ideas about marriage that her mother imparts (all economically minded), Emily has a romantic personality that resists such materials concerns.
Emily and Kelroy are a perfect match for each other and quickly fall in love, despite all the attempts Mrs. Hammond makes to separate them.
After Lucy and Mr. Walsingham leave for England, Mrs. Hammond's house burns down, and she wins the lottery, which allows the pretext and the means to move to the country (to preserve the money she has left).
Only after she receives a letter from Kelroy in which he releases her from the engagement does Emily (deeply grieving) agree to marry Dunlevy.