Kathleen Thompson Norris was born in 1880 in San Francisco, California. She was a novelist writing many romance novels. Norris was the highest paid female novelist in her day. Her novels featured upper class society particularly in the San Francisco area. This brief novel relates how lovely Margaret Paget, a teacher and one of eight children, accepts a position out of town as secretary to a rich family. She falls in love with a young professor, and comes to realize how much her mother means to her.