Even though she has been promised a grand education in America, twelve year-old Mary Cleary does not want to leave Ballydare to live with Delia, an aunt she has never met. "Tis a heart of stone Delia Reardon must have not to write her own mother," the neighbors have whispered. Even Uncle Pat doesn't know why his older sister left Ireland. But Gran insists. Determined to make peace in the family Mary arrives in Boston. But on her first morning, dressed in a maid's uniform and holding a dust rag, she listens to this aunt explain the finer points of housekeeping and wonders, "Is this the grand education I've been promised?"