The English equity court of the nineteenth century is satirized in Dicken's tale about the suit of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce.

The sun beamed down on Melissa Henderson's shining dark hair, pinned up on her head in a loose knot, as sweat ran down her face, and the muscles in her long, lithe arms were taut with effort as she worked. She was lost in concentration, sanding a door of the house in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts that had been her salvation. She had bought it four years before. It had been weather-beaten, shabby and in serious need of repair when she found...

"When the affluent Lintons of Lenox Hill summon Sarah Brandt to examine their teenage daughter, their worst fear is confirmed: She is with child. The pregnancy is a mystery, however, as the young woman - mentally still a child herself - is never left on her own and denies that any man has ever hurt her." "To help her discover who is responsible, Sarah, after much prodding, enlists the aid of her friend, Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, who is reluctant...

Adam Bede, an honest, hard-working carpenter, has his heart set on marrying his sweetheart, pretty dairymaid Hetty Sorrel. Hetty wants nothing to do with her boring life on the farm and she allows herself to be seduced by the heir to a local estate. She finds herself abandoned and pregnant from her ill-fated dalliance.