"The Grange" was a very superior guest-house in the Lake District, owned by a couple of very superior and genteel slave-drivers, and Joanna worked there some sixteen hours a day. And as if that wasn't enough, she found herself holding the threads of a pretty tangled situation, for her much-loved brother Stephen was in love with Isobel, who was engaged to David, who attracted Joanna more than a little. It would have been easy enough to throw Isobel into Stephen's arms...but that solution wouldn't do for Joanna, since it took no account of David's feelings. So there they all were- but of course the story ends happily and is told with Mary Burchell's inimitable charm.