Sheila Josselin is more than a difficult child. Her family, father, mother and younger sister Honor, live in dread of her fits of temper, tears and recriminations. At one she confesses, ‘I am a perfect alien in my own home. Nobody loves me’ and a little later ‘I am alone in my own home.’ These are worrying statements from such a young teenage girl.

She has one friend who appears to listen and support, the dreary Mildred Frost ‘more a silly girl than a naughty one’. Molesworth takes delight in their intense emotionally fraught conversation in the picturesque wood near Sheila’s home.

‘Do you often wander here alone, my poor Sheila, when things are pressing hard upon you and you long for sympathy?’

‘No, said Sheila bluntly, ‘I don’t. The trees wouldn’t give me much sympathy, would they? Besides, it’s rather too lonely. I’m not sure that I should like to come here quite by myself.’

Then they are disturbed by Diana described by Mrs Molesworth as one of the ‘real, true gypsies of thoroughbred kind … a true Romany.’ Although this description is of its time, Mrs Molesworth herself believed she had second sight, and this surely influenced her sympathetic portrayal of Diana and her elevation to a pivotal character within the plot development. Sheila has friends; her family, despite her temper and wilful misunderstanding, and the disabled boy Conan Sherwood she has always supported and Diana the devoted stranger. But she cannot recognise these friends.

An overheard conversation precipitates a misguided and shocking act of rebellion for contemporary readers. Sheila’s decision disrupts all their lives and Mrs Molesworth can only resolve the shock and trauma with Diana’s help bringing resolution to a disturbing but psychologically realistic tale.