In 1905, Emma Howe is plain and at the threshold of spinsterhood. When she receives an unexpected marriage proposal from a man she has never seen, and knows only through his letters, she breaks painfully with her uncomprehending family and crosses the country by train to meet him in person. After the long journey from her home in quiet Vermont to a homesteading settlement in Washington state, she finally comes face-to-face with Arthur Smollett, a stubborn, single-minded man who has created a vision of Emma as the perfect wife. In this tender novel of a turn-of-the-century courtship, Margaret Robinson carefully evokes the sights and smells of rural America while weaving a sensitive story of two unlikely lovers.