After World War II, a former American soldier receives news of a wedding in England, where he was once stationed. He’d love to go to intervene in the proceedings, but he must stay with his mother-in-law instead. Nevertheless, the news gets him thinking about a day when he was walking through Devon and met a precocious young girl named Esme, who seemed wise beyond her years and dreamed of being a singer. She learned that the soldier was a writer and made him promise to write her letters. Following that episode, the soldier found the war very difficult: he spent much time despondent and unable to write. But when Esme’s letters came for him, his mood lifted and he gathered the means to make it through the war.