Halcyone -- a young girl living with her two Aunts -- goes to play in the garden of the empty house next door while her stewards are doing other things -- a home that's been empty for quite a long while. She makes a habit of playing there, in fact -- until the day she discovers someone living in the home. That should have given her pause -- but, just the opposite, it moved her to climb in through the window to discover . . . that a very old man had bought the home. The old man, instead of telling Halcyone to leave the house and never trespass on his property again, invites Halcyone to come visit him, and of course she can still play in the garden.

What develops is a friendship between the two based on understanding and, uhm, discourse. Really