[1] Phoebe and Nancy Marsden are sisters living a comfortable existence with their family in rural Victoria.
Phoebe is the practical sister, interested in helping the family and refusing a marriage proposal as she does not feel the necessary affection for her suitor.
Nancy, on the other hand, marries a well-to-do man twenty years her senior while her lover, Kirkham, is prospecting for gold in Western Australia.
Kirkham strikes it rich in WA and upon returning to Victoria and finding Nancy no longer available, turns his affections towards Phoebe.
The other is the quiet, uneventful existence of a family at Ballarat, and the attempt made by one of the girls to earn her own living by beekeeping and poultry farming."