"Who would suspect her of a sense of fun and irony, of a passionate love for beauty and the power to drag it from its hidden places? Who could imagine that Miss Mole pictured herself, at different times, as an explorer in strange lands, as a lady wrapped in luxury and delicious garments . . . ?"

Mis Hannah Mole, a farmer's daughter, has for twenty years earned her living as nursery governess or companion to a succession of difficult old women. Now aged forty, a thin, shabby figure, she returns to the lovely city of Radstowe with its hills, trees and arching suspension bridge. Here she is, if not exactly embraced, at least sheltered and employed by the pompous nonconformist minister, Reverend Gorder, whose motherless daughters are sorely in need of care and good food. But even the dreariest situation can be transformed into an adventure by the indomitable Miss Mole. Blessed with wit, intelligence and the splendid capacity to call a spade a spade, she wins the affection of Ethel and of her nervous sister Ruth, transforms life at th Vicarage, and triumphs in her own entrancing way . . .

Book description from back cover of Virgo Press (1987) edition