Little Cornelli lives a gay and joyous life with her widowed father, enjoying the freedom of the outdoors, the companionship of the wood's creatures, the loving friendship of her mother's old nurse, Martha, and the simple folk of the neighborhood.

Suddenly everything changes when an old maid cousin of her father's arrives to make a lady of her. Surrounded by strict rules, with constant fault finding and misunderstanding, Cornelli becomes a very different child. Unhappiness and fear make her stubborn, morose and silent.

But Cornelli was not meant to be so—and a new friendship leads her into the warmth and happiness of a family whose sympathetic understanding finally restore the child's merry nature. And through her father Cornelli is able to help Dino and Mux, Nika and Agnes and the hard-pressed mother out of sore trouble and into the sunshine of happiness for them all. 

From the dust jacket of the 1935 Grosset and Dunlap edition