In the midst of the Mississippi woods, pretty young Rosamond Musgrove lives with her father, Clement, and her chilly, jealous stepmother, Salome. There, she is loved by her father but treated badly by his wife, never able to please however little she complains. One day, she is instructed to clean the house from top to toe, to wash the floor, polish the dishes and shine the candlesticks until they gleam and glitter in the darkness. That evening, worn out and dishevelled, she meets for the first time the dashing bandit, Jamie Lockhart, and from then on, her fate is sealed ... In this extraordinary , colourful fairy tale of the South, Eudora Welty clearly displays her admiration of the old tradition and combines it with her perceptive and curious sense of the place and people she loves.