A work of faith and hope, repentance and redemption, this novel, set in Marshmallows, a rural location in Victorian England, is the story of a young vicar, Harry Walton, beginning work in his first parish. As he wins the confidence and affection of his parishioners he also comes to know the web of entanglements and sorrows that bind many of them, including the lovely and evasive young woman who lives with her mother and niece in stately Oldcastle Hall, the center of some of the neighborhood's longest hidden secrets.