Valancy Stirling
A frightened, unmarried woman of twenty-nine who turns an apparent death sentence into permission to live by her own judgment.
Barney Snaith / Bernard Redfern
A reclusive local man, secretly the estranged son of a patent-medicine millionaire and the nature writer John Foster.
Cissy Gay
Roaring Abel's terminally ill daughter, shunned after an unmarried pregnancy and sustained by Valancy's friendship.
Roaring Abel Gay
Cissy's hard-drinking, blasphemous, affectionate father, who gives Valancy useful work and unexpected acceptance.
Mrs. Frederick Stirling
Valancy's controlling widowed mother, whose love is expressed almost entirely as regulation and respectability.
Cousin Christine Stickles
Valancy's anxious housemate and enforcer of the Stirling clan's health rituals.
Uncle Benjamin and Uncle James
Leading male relatives who answer Valancy's independence with jokes, authority, doctors, and legal threats.
Olive Stirling
The beautiful, socially successful cousin against whom Valancy has always been measured.
Dr. Trent
The blunt physician whose misdirected letter gives Valancy the false diagnosis that changes her life.
Dr. Redfern
Barney's wealthy father, eager for reconciliation and prone to disclosures that create new misunderstandings.
Allan Tierney
A celebrated painter who recognizes Valancy's awakened beauty and asks to paint her portrait.