The true first volume in the author's Abbey Series. Cicely moves to Whiteleaf in Buckinghamshire to be near her grandparents, and goes to Miss Macey's school in Wycombe. She tries - with inspiration from the life of John Hampden, a local hero of hers from over 2 centuries earlier - to bring a happier state of affairs between the original members of the School, and the 'Hamlets' who have joined it more recently, and to eradicate the snobbishness that has caused enmity between the two groups of girls. How she eventually succeeds in this, through establishing The Hamlet Club, and how that Club helps the school in a time of crisis, is the story told in these pages.