Birch Hill/Trilling Heart

Birch Hill is the name of the farm where Caroline lives with her father Samuel, and where they open the Trilling Heart School for Girls. Classes are held in the barn, and the students, Caroline, Samuel, David, and Sophia all live in the farmhouse. When Caroline was a small child, Samuel launched his first major venture on the premises, a collective farm called the Birch Hill Consociation. Miles Pearson and Dr. Hawkins both lived on the farm at that time, as did Caroline's mother Anna. After the failure of the collective farm and Anna's death (when Caroline was four years old), Caroline and Samuel lived there alone. When the novel begins, Caroline feels constricted by her life with Samuel and longs for independence.

Nevertheless, the environment is described with idyllic imagery: The sloping green of the fields in the sun, stands of trees clustered here...