Really, this book is the diary of a young maidservant who got forced to take her older sister's place, because the family was moving from Quebec City to Ottawa and the older sister wanted to stay in Quebec City and get married. She bumbles around a bit, because she has a tendency to be clumsy when her mind is on something more important than her work. The manservant of the family hates her for a reason that's never explained. She hangs around with the Irish boy who delivers water to the house and the French boy who does something else. I don't even remember what. She eventually meets a fellow maidservant and they hang out sometimes. The French boy brings her a kitty. The mistress of the house almost dies while she's pregnant, but recovers and the baby isn't affected by her illness. She has the baby and a nursemaid is brought in. There's a carriage accident and shortly following, Rosie is told about a missing expensive bracelet. The nasty manservant thinks she took it. She's hurt by all this and eventually, it gets to be so much that she plans to leave, but changes her mind. The Irish boy yells at her for this and they seem to come to a bit of a understanding about the future. The family tells her they would never think it was her and yes, she's moving with them to the new house they're building. In the epilogue, we learn that the bracelet was found in the carriage by the manservant, so he's forced to apologize, but in the follow-up Christmas story, he's still an asshole. I enjoyed the Christmas story, because Rosie finally got made the nursemaid.
It's a good book. It's just not quite up to Dear America/Canada standards for the historical content.
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