Maria Bowring, the eldest child of John Bowring, well known Victorian polititian and statesman, chose to spend the last years of her life in a Catholic Convent in London as an annuitant. In this book, through her contacts with the Bellasis family, a very highly regarded Catholic convert family which included two priests and three nuns, and other well known people of the time such as Florence Nightingale, we get a picture of what her life might have been like.