"The life of a woman in Victorian England was fraught with social restrictions and professional obstacles. And so Elizabeth Gow, young and ambitious, gives up the prospect of a teaching position at a fashionable London seminary to accompany her widowed father to America. All hope vanishes as she boards the ship that will carry her to an uncertain future - first in Philadelphia and then in the Midwest where she marries, raises a family, and struggles to adjust her Old World ideals and aspirations to a harsh new reality." "Patrick Gregory takes Elizabeth from unsure girl on unfamiliar soil to resilient matriarch. The poignancy of her story lies in its commonality, with its youthful hopes and soaring ambitions, followed by disillusionment and unexpected turns of fate. If Elizabeth's life ends in obscurity, it nonetheless acquires a certain nobility through her persistent efforts to wrest meaning from her experiences."--BOOK JACKET.