After her parents' deaths, and her brother's departure for America, Jemima had no choice but to make a new life for herself. Since she wasn't trained for anything, that wasn't going to be easy. On the whole, she realized she had been very lucky to be taken on as companion-help to Lady Manderly, yet Jemima knew that her life was somehow unsatisfactory, and she felt unfulfilled. Such thoughts might, of course, have something to do with Lady Manderly's nephew—Professor Alexander Cator!