From the dust jacket:

Readers of A Goodly Heritage - Miss Chase's previous book - already know with what intimate understanding and sympathetic humor she portrays New England life. Much of the atmosphere of that autobiographical story pervades this new book, a novel of the Maine coast during the past sixty years. Centered in the life of a seafaring family, it has for its theme the abiding, indestructible influences of the seafaring heritage of New England upon the natures of those intimately connected with it.

Mary Peters comes from a long line of deep-water captains, is herself born on a merchant ship off Singapore, and for fifteen years is brought up and educated on her father's vessel. This is the story of her experiences as a child on the Elizabeth, her entrance at fifteen in to village life of the eighties, and her later somewhat tragic life always under the influence of her girlhood at sea. Within her experience one sees the chnges in the life of the Maine coast during the last fifty years with the decay of its shipping and the influx of summer visitors.