The story introduces twin brothers, Cradock and Clayton Nowell, whose nurse forgets which is the elder, the rosette by which she had distinguished them having fallen to the ground. She settles it to her own satisfaction, and the boys grow up under the care of their father, Sir Cradock Nowell, and their father's friend, John Rosedew, the rector.[6] Cradock falls in love with love Amy Rosedew, the rector's daughter. When the brothers are on the threshold of adulthood, an unwelcome guest comes in the person of a regimental surgeon, who had attended at the birth of the twins, and he discovers the mistake of the nurse. Not long afterwards the older brother, the one who had just stepped into his brother's place, is discovered shot dead in a lonely coppice, while the younger brother Cradock, with both barrels of his gun discharged, is standing close beside him. The father believes his son guilty, and drives him from his presence.[6] The rest of the tale is chiefly taken up by the account of what becomes of Cradock Nowell, and how at length he is restored to his home and to his father.