When Nurse Linda Grey went out to Portugal to look after the motherless, four-year-old Jacinto de Filano, she was shocked to find what a sedate, repressed, unchildlike life he was leading. She also found that in her efforts to introduce a little more freedom and gaiety into his upbringing, she was up against formidable opposition: that of the boy’s great-aunt, still attached to the traditions of her youth, and of his father. It was an entirely new thing for the Marquez de Filano to find his ideas criticized or his orders steadily (though quietly) opposed, and himself occupying in a woman’s thoughts a place secondary to that of a little boy; and he began to study this young English nurse with unexpected interest. And Linda, subjected to the full impact of his personality, found it hard to maintain her original attitude of dislike and resentment.