SPOILERS!!
Clare goes to Dublin to study at university college, and she shares her lodgings with two other girls: Mary Catherine and Valerie. Mary Catherine is American and her father, who is a postman, wants her to find a rich man with a castle and marry him. As for Valerie, her parents are divorced as her father left her mother for a younger woman.
Clare and the girls get on like a house on fire. Clare still goes to Castlebay on holidays, and every time Gerry Doyle is there, and he seems to be sweet on her, but Clare tries to resist her. Her sister, Chrissie, marries a local farmer, Maurice Byrne, and before the wedding the two sisters manage to make up and reach an understanding.
Mary Catherine is now seeing James Nolan, and he has the impression that Mary Catherine is a rich woman, so she tries to stall him when he says that he wants to go to America and see her there. Clare advises her to be honest with him and tell him that her father is not rich but a simple postman.
Valerie’s father falls sick and her mother rushes to England to look after him, so after he recovers, he realises that he wants to return to his wife. Valerie is not thrilled because his abandonment hurt her at the time, and Clare advises her to tell him how she feels.
Clare has kept a secret from her parents. Her brother Tommy was arrested and sent to prison for robbery, and Clare hasn’t told her parents. Thanks to the intervention of Angela and her friend Father Flynn, she gets to know that Tommy is all right. Father Flynn helps Ned to find a better job, and when Tommy is released, he also gets him a job.
Angela’s mother dies, but she decides not to tell Sean about it. Her sisters come to the funeral and she make up a story to explain her brother’s absence. Then she travels to London where Sean teaches, and Shuya does some clerical work. Sean hasn’t managed to obtain the secularisation which would allow him to marry Shuya. Angela explains to Sean that their mum died a month ago, and she made the decision for the two of them. Sean is grateful that she didn’t put him in a quandary. Now he keeps talking of going to Ireland, and Angela fears what that will mean not only for her brother but for her. She has been lying for years, and the scandal won’t be the only thing that worries her.
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