This is the story of a lonely girl with virtually no family or social support who nevertheless manages to bend her life into an arc that makes her comfortable and happy. Emma was a lonely little girl. She lived in a big castle (called a schloss in her country) and had many servants - but they were not really her servants. They served her father, the Freiherr von Walther, when he was at home, and looked after her as a sort of secondary duty. After all, they had to see that Father's farms produced food and that his villages were prosperous and orderly. As far as Emma could tell, nobody really cared about her...