With her parents recently dead and her handsome lover on his way to England, young Cathleen Bell looks forward to her expected child as someone to love and to fill her life. Working as a companion to an old woman, Cathleen raises Rosamund in a dilapidated house on the bay in Sydney. The woman dies; Cathleen takes a teaching job and is thus able to buy the house. Rosamund, who possesses her father's tempestuous spirit and artistic talent, matures into young womanhood. Cathleen experiences each moment of her daughter's growth as separation, often glad she will soon have a life of her own but aware of how difficult it will be to begin living for herself. Klein (Women of a Certain Age, chronicles the development of Cathleen and Rosamund's relationship with fair and loving accuracy.