From the moment she sees the stranger to the moment she hears him and her mother talking, Nell is filled with a sense of fear. Even after the stranger leaves, and in spite of her mother's reassurances, Nell suspects their lives are about to change. A short time later, Nell's mother disappears, leaving behind a brief note in which she asks Nell to take care of her seven brothers and sisters. Nell's cowardly father sinks deeper into his own misery, and Nell is forced to make a choice between the young man she has given her heart to, and the family she adores.
Only eighteen and with her whole life ahead of her, Nell is made to realise that she must put the children's happiness before her own. It is the cruellest decision of her life, with long-reaching and heartbreaking consequences. Only one thing is certain: Nell's life will never be the same again.
