This contemporary story takes place in areas of London. Kate Seton lives with her mother and lawyer father in prosperous Hampstead, enjoying a spacious yard and roomy home maintained by a housekeeper. The tidy household is shaken by the arrival of shabbily dressed Rosie from Hockley, "a rough part of London" an hour's journey away. Except for part of a day's visit by Kate and Rosie to Hockley—a noisy, cluttered place of heavy traffic, tall buildings, dirty alleys and shadowed doorways—the action unfolds primarily at the Seton home.