In the approved Victorian manner, the amorous Mr Murgatroyd kneels before Daisy, the elder daughter of Mrs Bell, and extolls modestly but with conviction his many virtues and assets. But Mrs Bell objects to gaining a son in the retail because the husband she has lost was in the wholesale, and she is not above using fictitious fainting fits to gain her end. But Daisy has long ago seen through these attacks even if her younger sister is still taken in by them, and with the aid of a bicycle made for two, and wearing the new-fashionaed bloomers, she elopes with her young man.