"Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles" is a novel about the power of will and the ways in which people determine their own fate. It spans three generations of Halliburton family, whose members are dealing with debt, seduction, murder, deception, and the constant threat of sinking below their class. The novel's heroine, the widowed Mrs. Halliburton is presented as a shining example of religiosity and righteousness, and the book follows her life from the moment she meets her future husband to the one in which she assists proudly to the success in the life of her three children, models of perfection, unlike the family of Halliburtons' cousins, the Dares, who suffer one scandal and disgrace after another.