Old Mr. Rock lives in a cottage, given to him by the State in gratitude for his scientific work, with his granddaughter Elizabeth. His household includes Daisy the pig, Ted the goose and Alice the cat but there threatens to be an additional member in the person of Sebastian, the schoolteacher whom Elizabeth wants to marry. He teaches in a State school run by two inseparable, authoritarian spinsters. On the morning of the Founder’s Day Ball two girls go missing from the school. What has happened to them and how will the spinsters keep the news of the disappearance from the State authorities? As Mr. Rock pursues the unfolding events of the day and eavesdrops on conversations up at the school and down at the cottage, Henry Green teases out all the hidden ambitions and lusts, the suspicions and jealousies that lurk beneath the placid surface of the Institution.