chunk: The second book in the Aunt Jane's series picks up where the first left off. The eccentric and down-to-earth millionaire John Merrick decides to take his three beloved nieces – Patsy Doyle, Elizabeth de Graf, and Louise Merrick – on a tour of Europe. The parents of the three girls react variously, but don't oppose the trip; Mrs. Merrick, Louise's mother, wants to accompany them as chaperone, a prospect that Uncle John rejects out of hand. Still, Mrs. Merrick allows her daughter to go; she wants to separate Louise from Arthur Weldon, the young man who has been courting her. (The social-climbing Mrs. Merrick is desperate for Louise to land a rich husband. Weldon's father is a wealthy railroad magnate, but the father and son are in a clash of generations and the elder Weldon threatens to disown the younger).