When Philippa Lyle, newly engaged, returns home from Canada to visit old friends and family, she finds sleepy hometown in rural England much changed and she unexpectedly renews a friendship with Ward Rowallen, the heir to the crumbling manor house on the hill. Engaging story about a girl returning home to England for a month before getting married and moving to Canada to live, only to find her old neighborhood being systematically dug up to uncover some amazing ancient Roman ruins, and the neighborhood folks she had grown up with adjusting in their own ways. The plot is complicated by her falling in love with her old playmate, who owns the estate where the ruins were discovered, before her fiance joins her in England to find out exactly where HE stands. The characters are well-defined and interesting, and the story wraps up well and very satisfactorily.