Fall 1938. In Marguerite’s first letter to Maude, she describes arriving in Panama and then Costa Rica, travelling by train to the town of Cartago. Maude replies with a letter of settling into her new home in Liverpool, England.

Fall 1938. Marguerite starts both an adventure and a diary and meets a kindred spirit named Maude on the boat train to New York. Marguerite is bound for Costa Rica and Maude for Liverpool England and the two agree to write to each other.