In this sequel to Trees of Mamre: A Difficult Blessing, Emily Spencer comes home from the Indiana Territory in the early 1800s to live with her father in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia. Although she misses her mother, who was injured and unable to care for her when their previous house burned, Emily finds solace in her aunt Lucinda and in her friendships with the house staff and nearby friends and neighbors. One in particular, Archie, tells her a stunning secret about her family just before he leaves the area. Resistant to its full implications, Emily nonetheless realizes that it might help reunite her family. It does but the events that follow are more dramatic than she ever could have imagined.   Meanwhile, war is brewing between England and the United States, and her father is called to fight for his country at sea in the West Indies. A letter from him asks Emily to find the wife and children of his recently slain first mate and to take them into their home. Their lives become woven together with those of the Spencer family, sometimes in unexpected ways.   This is the continuing story of an adventurous young woman who became a Christian during her years in the Indiana Territory and seeks to live out her faith back home in Virginia. Friendships and family relationships help Emily avoid bitterness and anger in the harshest circumstances, and she learns to make peace with even "difficult blessings."