With the help of her diary, Sarah Morris tries to make a pattern of the lives of her family and her friends...

The result is a brightly woven tapestry of which the main thread, Sarah’s own story, is the love which grows naturally from the innocent affection of a child into the all-absorbing passion of a woman.

Sarah tells of her happy childhood at the Vicarage. The Morris family is full of life and individuality: Lewis, handsome and brave, Willy, less fortunate, and Lottie with her flaxen curls, who takes what she wants from life regardless of other people’s feelings. Gradually Sarah’s world expands as her brothers grow up and bring back friends from Oxford—among them Charles, the charming yet slightly mysterious Austrian to whom she is strangely drawn.

Over the years they fall in love, but suddenly the harmony of their lives is broken by the outbreak of war, and Charles must return to Austria. While she awaits his return, Sarah quietly continues working hard and caring for her family. But she can't stop wondering if she will ever see her sweetheart again...