America was struggling through the Depression when Pauline Thresher, the beautiful wife of a powerful banker, left her husband of twenty-five years because she could no longer bear his flagrant infidelity. — Sara Thresher, her wise and compassionate mother-in-law, understood too well that wealth and position could not compensate for marriage to a cold, domineering man. She chose to go with Pauline, even though it meant a cruel and perhaps irrvocable estrangement from her own son.

But Lindsay, Pauline's lovely, willful daughter, stood on the threshold of a different world-a world which would deman all her resilience and determination if she was to survive as her own woman.