When the cold, reigning matriarch of a rural Maine first family dies, she leaves her fortune and estate to a shrewish second cousin, stranding her three grasping and entitled eldest children. To compound the injury, the new heiress refuses them any assistance, and she takes on as a hand the black sheep of the family: their ne’er-do-well brother on the run from the law. She proves a stern task-master; he a resentful partner, yet they begin to envision a better future in spite of themselves. But nature will out in a play that asks whether our habits and fears will always defy our highest aspirations.