Back in New York, Emma and her business partner. T. A. Buck Jr., try to disguise their budding romance from colleagues. After months of acting like a captain of finance when he feels like a Romeo, T.A. convinces Emma they should marry. Emma tries to "be what the yellow novels call a doll-wife" but trades in her fancy dressing gowns for more sensible business suits and heads back to the office.

With one hand writing advertising copy and the other wrapped around a pair of shears, Emma saves the company from financial peril amid the arrival of some flustering, if exciting, news from Jock. By turns sales pro, newlywed, fashion maven, and anxious grandmother, Emma symbolizes the ideal woman at the dawn of the twentieth century: sharp, capable, charming, and progressive. Emma McChesney and Co. is enhanced by the drawings of J. Henry.