A polite and pleasant story of a holiday with four children at the shore. Widowed and brooding over her dead husband's infidelities and deficiencies, Dinah Savage is not at her happiest when her twin brother comes back from the Navy. He decides she is to go to their old Nannie. Relative freedom from the children revitalizes her, offers new friends, new experiences. While the children win the hearts of an elderly couple, Dinah finds herself a new love. Broadly British -- but more relaxing reading than Thirkell.