A gentle young girl protected by position and wealth, is plunged into the depths of poverty and discovers the joy of self-sufficiency, the rapture of first love.

Marilla Reed had everything she could want growing up. She knew that life held only the best for her. -- Then, one tragic day, her father is brought home unconscious. Suddenly Marilla finds her life changed dramatically -- and not for the better! Plunged into poverty, forced to move to a tumbledown cottage on the poor side of town, Marilla and her family must learn a new way of life ... and a new way of survival.

But who will protect Marilla from her dangerous new neighbors? Has she lost all hope of finding the happiness -- and the love -- she longs for?