A Peaceful Retirement

Miss. Read greets retirement from the village school with considerable excitement, and is determined to prove wrong those friends who doubt that she will be able to cope alone.

She settles down to what she hopes will be an endless stream of lazy days but is, of course, completely thwarted.

She is called upon to advise on Henry Mawne's matrimonial problems, the vicar wants her to write a history of the village, and she has to ward off John Jenkins' persistent offers of marriage.

The Fairacre characters, so well loved from the previous books, weave a colorful background, none more so than Mrs. Pringle who still clucks over the state of Miss. Read's housekeeping.