Emma Greig has seen little of the world when she leaves school to become a maid at Bonnybrae Farm. The Sinclair family in turn welcome and reject her: Maggie is kind and warm and the two girls quickly become close. Her brothers Jim and William are more playful gently teasing Emma for her youthful innocence. The haughty and aloof Mrs Sinclair disturbed by her children's friendships with the new maid resolves to remind Emma of her place on the social divide. When Emma and William defy his controlling mother unforeseen circumstances force Emma to be sent away and William to be banished from the farm he loves. Will the connection they share be enough to draw them together again?