Hardy’s third novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, follows the story of Elfride Swancourt. The daughter of the Rector of Endelstow, a sparse sea-swept parish in Cornwall, Elfride is caught between two suitors of very different backgrounds: Stephen Smith, a young architect restoring the old parish church, and the respectable, older man of London society, Henry Knight. The blue-eyed and high-spirited protagonist must untangle the conflicting messages of her heart and her mind.