When Mike Patterson went back to England to see the village where his father had been born, he was full of the ideas -- and, it must be admitted, prejudices -- natural to a highly successful Canadian business man. At first he hadn't much patience with Beech Hampden, its "great house" and its unprogressive, inefficient ways. But he grew to appreciate the beauty of the place, to understand its values ... and he fell in love with an English girl. In the course of an enchanted holiday in Italy he told her so, only to find that his own money, buying the impoverished estate, had enabled the struggling young English heir to become engaged to her.
All his life Mike had been accustomed to getting what he wanted. Was he going to fail in this most important want of all?