Morgan Bigley, a well-to-do Southern lawyer, is left with two young daughters to raise after his wife, Emily, is killed in an automobile accident in 1934. With the help of a new housekeeper, Miss Mattie, and a loving nurse, Viola, he attempts to bring the girls up according to the standards of the old South. Josy, the older girl, is a gutsy beauty who shares her father's love of the outdoor life. Agnes, the younger daughter, is a born iconoclast whose questions roil the certainties of Morgan's traditional values. In the process of healing, Morgan strives to regain the happy, easy-going life-style to which he and his family were accustomed before Emily's death. He meets and falls in love with Theodosia, a vivacious and progressive actress whom his daughters adore. Theodosia has family in Germany, and the darkness that has overtaken that country with Hitler's rise to power is of immediate concern to her. A war in Europe and a changing South are a backdrop to the unfolding story as the Bigleys traverse serious obstacles outwardly, while their inner landscapes evolve and deepen.