"It's not right that we should have to fight for something so obviously right and just as having the vote but we must. Someone must!" Lady Anastasia Banks has lived her entire life thus far in a world where she may do as she likes, be it running around the countryside with her cousins or sitting quietly in a secluded corner, immersed in a book about the flora and fauna of her home county of Kent. But with her 'coming out' only a year away, Anastasia gradually realises her future will be quite different. And she's not sure if she'll like it. Thrust into the world of Edwardian high society and faced with an impossible choice, Anastasia comes to see that perhaps life isn't so simple and fair as she once thought. In her frustration, she comes across a group of ladies who promise to help her... to help all women.

A young man named Eric Marshall goes to teach a school on Prince Edward Island and meets Kilmeny, a mute girl who has perfect hearing. He sees her when he is walking through an old orchard and hears her playing the violin. He visits her a number of times and gradually falls in love with her. When he proposes she rejects him, even though she loves him in return, believing that her disability will only hinder his life if they were married, despite his protests that it wouldn't matter at all. Meanwhile, Eric's good friend David who is a renowned throat doctor, comes to the island and visits Eric. He examines Kilmeny, and says that nothing will cure her but an extreme psychological need to speak. This need comes soon when Neil Gordon, who is Kilmeny's brother and madly jealous of Eric, comes behind Eric with an axe, meaning to kill him. Kilmeny is nearby, and without thinking, she yells to Eric to look behind him: she can now speak. Neil runs away on a ship, and Kilmeny and Eric get married.