Four sisters live together in a staid, unfamiliar house after their mother’s death while their father remains away, and they must adapt to changes such as the loss of their nurse and the death of their grandfather. The narrative proceeds episodically through visits, music lessons, neighborhood incidents, a child’s disappearance, celebrations, and efforts by the older girls to find work, with recurring tensions around new guardians and household authority. Each chapter sketches domestic episodes and small crises that test the girls’ resourcefulness and mutual devotion, emphasizing resilience, responsibility, and the comforts of sisterly solidarity.