An Edwardian story of love and hope in pre-war Cornwall - Helena Tregenza has a loving family and many talents but her blindness makes her an object of embarrassment, especially to her vivacious sister Lucy. While Elena struggles for a place in the world, and Lucy hesitates between her childhood sweetheart and dashing, arrogant Simon Robinson, their maid Maisie cannot even afford to marry her beau. And the First World War is looming . . . What will become of the Tregenza girls?