English county the setting, the time the present, and English family and local types the cast of characters in which orphan Hester creates many minute turbulences. Visiting her god-mother, Mrs. Hutton, after her engagement has been broken (for managing), Hester, nicely (but rather smugly) bores right in to dissolve the Hutton inertia and gets the father on his feet and out of his invalid's chair, puts the family car in motion, gives a push to the romance between the daughter and the local landed proprietor of Mingham Priory, and aids the son, Derek, to keep the secret of his quitting his bank job to work in an antique shop. Marching along with her activities are the tenant and guest problems of snoopy Mrs. Hyde, the bumbling of the rector's wife, the criticisms of the daily obliger, Mrs. Pilgrim, and Mrs. Hutton's confusion when she learns that Hester and Derek are planning on wedding bells....Much fussing, some funning and a bagful of social and personal impasses, keep this in familiar British territory.