Suddenly risen to power and influence, Samuel Fairbrother, manufacturer and retailer of boots, shoes and clogs, decided that his new station in life deserved a more imposing residence. And so he bought himself a thirty-four-roomed mansion situated on the outskirts of Fellburn. With the house came Maitland, the butler, who at once made plain his belief that Samuel, far from the gentleman his predecessor had been, was no more than an upstart. So began a clash of wills and an uneasy truce between master and man. As the years went by and the century turned, Samuel Fairbrother saw his children, one by one, leave the big house to make lives of their own - all except his eldest daughter Janet. It was Janet who, by means of a legacy, was able to shape the destiny of her father's scattered family and effect the reconciliation that he had believed impossible.