Although neither dates nor locales are identified, the setting appears to be a small midwestern community, perhaps in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Until her mother's death, Julie lived in the college town where her father, Adam Trelling, is a scholarly, overworked college professor. Because Professor Trelling feels overwhelmed with the responsibility of being a single parent, his two younger children, Julie and her nine-year-old brother, Christopher, are sent to live with their fifty-three-yearold spinster aunt, Miss Cordelia Bishop, and her older bachelor brother, Haskell, who lives in a renovated carriage house "out back." Until Julie's arrival, the home has seen little lighthearted pleasure, because Cordelia, in addition to teaching, has spent half of her life caring for her aged mother and two very old spinster aunts. Although Julie is initially apprehensive about living in the country, she grows to love her new home.