Anna has agreed to marry Henry Mynors , but he has failed to keep the appointment to ask for her father's permission. Anna's freedom has its limits set by the social pressures of her time - a fate she shares with Willie Price.

Emerging from the domestic tyranny imposed by her father, Anna is to leave the Potteries for the first time in her life, to holiday on the Isle of Man with the Suttons-and Henry Mynors.

Anna Tellwright has inherited a fortune. Her new and unexpected responsibilities are not just financial but spiritual and emotional as well, and they involve her closely with both Henry Mynors and Willie Price.

Anna is the daughter of the rich but miserly widower, Ephraim Tellwright. When she reaches the age of 21, Anna finds herself entering a world from which she has been completely sheltered - a world where money rules.