The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of great conflict between the old ways and brand-new systems, and of huge fortunes made and lost. Against the backdrop of this transformation, young Marian Brook moves from rural Pennsylvania to New York City after the death of her father to live with her thoroughly old-money aunts. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an aspiring writer seeking a fresh start, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war, between one of her aunts, a scion of the old-money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife. Exposed to a world on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?