Julia Dunstan's return to Goatstock in the north of England to reopen Belmont House, a legacy from her uncle, was light-hearted and eager. It seemed a heaven-sent opportunity to indulge the unbounded interest in other people with which she filled the gaps commonly associated with widowhood. It was also a chance to recapture, after years abroad, the carefree sense of permanence she had known in her childhood summers there. That her cousin Dora, with whom she had shared those summers, her husband's attractive young nephew Robert, and Nanny, who had been a sort of parlor-maid and part-time nurse in days long past, would share this return to what Julia thought of as her native heath made the prospect more delightful. And not the least of her pleasant anticipations was renewing her friendship with Francis Heswald, a bachelor cousin whom she had not seen for more years than she cared to remember.

Chic and charming, Julia was used to getting on with people - even, when it seemed necessary, to helping them lead fuller lives. But she was unprepared to find that Dora had grown into a large, hearty woman who slammed doors, trod heavily about the house, and cheerfully left the problems of the menage to her reluctant cousin. Or that Nanny, intent on playing the role of old family retainer to the hilt, would be fiercely jealous of anyone who appeared to come between her and her charge.

And, bravely as she plunged into them, Julia was even less prepared for the intricacies of life in Goatstock: the dire threat of a New Town; the struggle for the vicar's affection between Miss Briggs, who could cook, and his sister, Miss Pope, who could not; the skittish vagaries of Mrs. Minnis; the dastardly trick played on Lady Finch; or the benevolent scheming of pretty Harriet Finch.